Re: [patch 1/2] fork_connector: add a fork connector

Guillaume Thouvenin
2005-03-30T05:40:15Z

On Tue, 2005-03-29 at 07:23 -0800, Paul Jackson wrote:
> Guillaume wrote:
> > The goal of the fork connector is to inform a user space application
> > that a fork occurs in the kernel. This information (cpu ID, parent PID
> > and child PID) can be used by several user space applications. It's not
> > only for accounting. Accounting and fork_connector are two different
> > things and thus, fork_connector doesn't do the merge of any kinds of
> > data (and it will never do).
>
> Yes - it is clear that the fork_connector does this - inform user space
> of fork information <cpu, parent, child>. I'm not saying that
> fork_connector should merge data; I'm observing that it doesn't, and
> that this would seem to serve the needs of accounting poorly.
>
> Out of curiosity, what are these 'several user space applications?' The
> only one I know of is this extension to bsd accounting to include
> capturing parent and child pid at fork. Probably you've mentioned some
> other uses of fork_connector before here, but I missed it.

During the discussion some people like Erich Focht and Ram mentioned
that this information can be useful for them. I remember that Erich had
in mind something like cluster-wide pid tracking in user space.

When I wrote "several user space applications" it was just to say that
this fork connector is not designed only for ELSA and fork information
is available to every listeners.

Regards,
Guillaume