Re: [PATCH] Add /proc/pid_generation

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 12:14:44PM -0800, Daniel Colascione wrote:
> This change adds a per-pid-namespace 64-bit generation number,
> incremented on PID rollover, and exposes it via a new proc file
> /proc/pid_generation. By examining this file before and after /proc
> enumeration, user code can detect the potential reuse of a PID and
> restart the task enumeration process, repeating until it gets a
> coherent snapshot.
> 
> PID rollover ought to be rare, so in practice, scan repetitions will
> be rare.

Then why does it need to be 64-bit?