on the concept of COW

Jagadeesh Bhaskar P
2004-11-20T10:39:42Z

Hi,

When a process forks, every resource of the parent, including the
virtual memory is copied to the child process. The copying of VM uses
copy-on-write(COW). I know that COW comes when a write request comes,
and then the copy is made. Now my query follows:

How will the copy be distributed. Whether giving the child process a new
copy of VM be permanent or whether they will be merged anywhere? And
shouldn't the operations/updations by one process be visible to the
other which inherited the copy of the same VM?

How can this work? Can someone please help me on this regard?

--
With regards,

Jagadeesh Bhaskar P
R&D Engineer
HCL Infosystems Ltd
Pondicherry
INDIA