Re: [PATCH v2] Implement close-on-fork

Al Viro
2020-05-15T16:04:36Z

On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 10:23:17AM -0500, Nate Karstens wrote:

> This functionality was approved by the Austin Common Standards
> Revision Group for inclusion in the next revision of the POSIX
> standard (see issue 1318 in the Austin Group Defect Tracker).

It penalizes every call of fork() in the system (as well as adds
an extra dirtied cacheline on each socket()/open()/etc.), adds
memory footprint and complicates the API. All of that - to deal
with rather uncommon problem that already has a portable solution.

As for the Austin Group, the only authority it has ever had derives
from consensus between existing Unices. "Solaris does it, Linux and
*BSD do not" translates into "Austin Group is welcome to take a hike".
BTW, contrary to the lovely bit of misrepresentation in that
thread of theirs ("<LWN URL> suggests that" != "someone's comment
under LWN article says it _appears_ that"), none of *BSD do it.

IMO it's a bad idea.

NAKed-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>