Re: [PATCH 1/1] mm: introduce process_reap system call

* Suren Baghdasaryan:

The API is as follows,

          int process_reap(int pidfd, unsigned int flags);

        DESCRIPTION
          The process_reap() system call is used to free the memory of a
          dying process.

          The pidfd selects the process referred to by the PID file
          descriptor.
          (See pidofd_open(2) for further information)

          The flags argument is reserved for future use; currently, this
          argument must be specified as 0.

        RETURN VALUE
          On success, process_reap() returns 0. On error, -1 is returned
          and errno is set to indicate the error.

I think the manual page should mention what it means for a process to be
“dying”, and how to move a process to this state.

Thanks,
Florian

On Wed, Jul 7, 2021 at 2:47 AM Florian Weimer [off-list ref] wrote:

* Suren Baghdasaryan:

quoted

The API is as follows,

          int process_reap(int pidfd, unsigned int flags);

        DESCRIPTION
          The process_reap() system call is used to free the memory of a
          dying process.

          The pidfd selects the process referred to by the PID file
          descriptor.
          (See pidofd_open(2) for further information)

          The flags argument is reserved for future use; currently, this
          argument must be specified as 0.

        RETURN VALUE
          On success, process_reap() returns 0. On error, -1 is returned
          and errno is set to indicate the error.

I think the manual page should mention what it means for a process to be
“dying”, and how to move a process to this state.

Thanks for the suggestion, Florian! Would replacing "dying process"
with "process which was sent a SIGKILL signal" be sufficient?

Thanks,
Florian