a fork-like C-wrapper for clone(), DONE!

From: Francesc Oller (francesc@mat.upc.es)
Date: Wed Apr 25 2001 - 08:13:16 EST


Hi all,

Some days before I asked for a fork-like C-wrapper for clone() which
could be used like fork() thinking that somebody could have done it
before but I only received two e-mails saying that probably it
wasn't worth it or even it was complete non-sense.

Therefore, I've done it myself. Code follows.

Please, before beginning to flame me for doing "such kind of non-
standard threading model", I've to say that IMHO it has some merit.
After all it was E.W.Dijkstra who invented it in the late sixties.

Greetings from Barcelona

Francesc Oller

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/*
* Implementation of Dijkstra's parbegin/parend using clone()
* Modified from original Linus' clone.c example
* A proof of concept for academic purposes
* (c) Francesc Oller 2001, Linus Torvalds
* Under GPL license
*/

#include <unistd.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sched.h>

#include <linux/unistd.h>

#include "tinyx.h"

#define STACKSIZE 4096 /* 4 KB */

pid_t myclone(void)
{
        long retval;
        long *childsp;
        register long * motherbp __asm__ ("%ebp");

        /*
         * allocate new stack for child
         */
        childsp = malloc(STACKSIZE);
        if (!childsp)
                return -1;
        childsp = (long *)(((char *)childsp) + STACKSIZE);
        *--childsp = *(motherbp + 1); /* push return address */
        *--childsp = *motherbp; /* push mother's bp */

        /*
         * Do clone() system call. We need to do the low-level stuff
         * entirely in assembly as we're returning with a different
         * stack in the child process and we couldn't otherwise guarantee
         * that the program doesn't use the old stack incorrectly.
         *
         * Parameters to clone() system call:
         * %eax - __NR_clone, clone system call number
         * %ebx - clone_flags, bitmap of cloned data
         * %ecx - new stack pointer for cloned child
         *
         * In this example %ebx is CLONE_VM | CLONE_FS | CLONE_FILES |
         * CLONE_SIGHAND which shares as much as possible between parent
         * and child. (We or in the signal to be sent on child termination
         * into clone_flags: SIGCHLD makes the cloned process work like
         * a "normal" unix child process)
         *
         * The clone() system call returns (in %eax) the pid of the newly
         * cloned process to the mother, and 0 to the cloned process. If
         * an error occurs, the return value will be the negative errno.
         *
         * Prior to the creation of the child process, we have stored
         * return adress and caller's bp in child's stack. Child will
         * restore caller's bp and jmp to the post-clone adress. The
         * "_exit()" system call at the child's body end will terminate
         * the child.
         */
        __asm__ __volatile__(
                "int $0x80\n\t" /* Linux/i386 system call */
                "testl %0,%0\n\t" /* check return value */
                "jne 1f\n\t" /* jump if mother */
                "popl %%ebp\n\t" /* restore caller's bp */
                "ret\n" /* jmp to return address */
                "1:\t"
                :"=a" (retval)
                :"0" (__NR_clone),
                 "b" (CLONE_VM | CLONE_FS | CLONE_FILES | CLONE_SIGHAND | SIGCHLD),
                 "c" (childsp));

        if (retval < 0) {
                errno = -retval;
                retval = -1;
        }
        return retval;
}

int show_same_vm;

int main()
{
        int fd;

        fd = open("/dev/null", O_RDWR);
        if (fd < 0) {
                perror("/dev/null");
                exit(1);
        }
        printf("mother:\t fd = %d\n", fd);
        show_same_vm = 10;
        printf("mother:\t vm = %d\n", show_same_vm);

        switch(myclone())
        {
                case -1: perror("clone"); exit(1);
                case 0:
                        printf("child:\t fd = %d\n", fd);
                        show_same_vm = 5;
                        printf("child:\t vm = %d\n", show_same_vm);
                        close(fd);
                        _exit(0);
                default:
                        sleep(1);
                        printf("mother:\t vm = %d\n", show_same_vm);
                        if (write(fd, "c", 1) < 0)
                                printf("mother:\t child closed our file descriptor\n");
        }

        /*
         * The implementation of this construct is left as an exercise
         * to the reader ;-)
         */
        /*parbegin
                altpar
                        printf("I'm thread 1\n");
                        parbegin
                                altpar
                                        printf("I'm thread 4, child of thread 1\n");
                                altpar
                                        printf("I'm thread 5, child of thread 1\n");
                                altpar
                                        printf("I'm thread 6, child of thread 1\n");
                        parend
                altpar
                        printf("I'm thread 2\n");
                altpar
                        printf("I'm thread 3\n");
        parend*/
        return 0;
}

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