Unreliable signals

• signals were unreliable

• could get lost: a signal could occur and the process would never know about
it.
• a process had little control over a signal: a process could catch the signal or
ignoreit.
• Sometimes, we would like to tell the kernel to block a signal: don’t ignoreit,
just remember if it occurs, and tell us later when we’re ready
• One problem with these early versions was that the action for a signal was
reset to its default each time the signal occurred.
• The classic example systems concerns how to handle the interrupt signal.
the problem with this code fragment is that there is a window of time when the interrupt signal could occur another
time.
This second signal would cause the default action to occur, which terminates the process.

Another problem with these earlier systems was that the process was unable to turn a signal off when it didn’t want the
signal to occur
• Another problem with these earlier int sig_int(); /* my signal handling function */
systems was that the process was int sig_int_flag; /* set nonzero when signal occurs */
unable to turn a signal off when it
didn’t want the signal to occur. main()
{
• All the process could do was ignore signal(SIGINT, sig_int); /* establish handler */
the signal. ...
while (sig_int_flag == 0)
• There are times when we would like pause(); /* go to sleep, waiting for signal */
to tell the system "prevent the ...
following signals from interrupting }

me, but remember if they do occur". sig_int()

• But there is a window of time when {
signal(SIGINT, sig_int); /* reestablish handler for next
things can go wrong. If the signal time */
occurs after the test of sig_int_flag sig_int_flag = 1; /* set flag for main loop to examine */
but before the call to pause, the }
process could go to sleep forever
(assuming that the signal is never
generated again). This occurrence of
the signal is lost.
 Interrupted System Calls
• In earlier UNIX systems, if a process caught a signal while the process
was blocked in a "slow" system call, the system call was interrupted.
• The system call returned an error and errno was set to EINTR.
• This was done under the assumption that since a signal occurred and
the process caught it, there is a good chance that something has
happened that should wake up the blocked system call.
Slow system calls
• The system calls are divided into two categories: the "slow" system calls and all the others.
The slow system calls are those that can block forever:

• Reads that can block the caller forever if data isn’t present with certain file types (pipes,
terminal devices, and network devices)
• Writes that can block the caller forever if the data can’t be accepted immediately by these
same file types
• Opens on certain file types that block the caller until some condition occurs (such as a
terminal device open waiting until an attached modem answers the phone)
• The pause function (which by definition puts the calling process to sleep until a signal is
caught) and the wait function
• Certain ioctl operations
• Some of the interprocess communication functions
• notable exception to these slow system calls is anything related to disk I/O.
again:
if ((n = read(fd, buf, BUFFSIZE)) < 0) {
if (errno == EINTR)
goto again; /* just an interrupted system call */
/* handle other errors */
}
Automatic restarting
• Automatic restarting of certain interrupted system calls were introducted since 4.2BSD
to prevent applications from having to handle interrupted system calls.
• The system calls that were automatically restarted are:
Functions that are interrupted by a signal only if they are operating on a slow device:
• ioctl
• read
• readv
• write
• writev
Functions that are always interrupted when a signal is caught.
• wait
• waitpid
• Some applications didn’t want the operation restarted if it was interrupted; 4.3BSD
allowed the process to disable this feature on a per-signal basis.
Reentrant Functions
• When a signal that is being caught is handled by a process, the normal
sequence of instructions being executed by the process is temporarily
interrupted by the signal handler.
• The process then continues executing, but the instructions in the signal
handler are now executed.
• If the signal handler returns (instead of calling exit or longjmp), then the
normal sequence of instructions that the process was executing when
the signal was caught continues executing.
• This is similar to what happens when a hardware interrupt occurs.
Reentrant Functions
• However, in the signal handler, we can’t tell where the process was
executing when the signal was caught:
• What if the process was in the middle of allocating additional memory
on its heap using malloc, and we call malloc from the signal handler?
• Havoc can result for the process, since malloc usually maintains a linked
list of all its allocated areas, and it may have been in the middle of
changing this list.
• What if the process was in the middle of a call to a function, such as
getpwnam ,that stores its result in a static location, and we call the same
function from the signal handler?
• The information returned to the normal caller can get overwritten with
the information returned to the signal handler.
#include "apue.h" int main(void)

#include <pwd.h> {
struct passwd *ptr;
static void
signal(SIGALRM, my_alarm);
my_alarm(int signo)
alarm(1);
{
for ( ; ; ) {
struct passwd *rootptr;
if ((ptr = getpwnam("sar")) == NULL)
err_sys("getpwnam error");
printf("in signal handler\n"); if (strcmp(ptr->pw_name, "sar") != 0)
if ((rootptr = getpwnam("root")) == NULL) printf("return value corrupted!, pw_name = %s\n",
err_sys("getpwnam(root) error"); ptr->pw_name);
alarm(1); }
} }
SIGCLD Semantics

• Two signals that continually generate confusion are SIGCLD and

SIGCHLD.
• The name SIGCLD (without the H) is from System V, and this signal has
different semantics from the BSD signal, named SIGCHLD. The POSIX.1
signal is also named SIGCHLD.
• The semantics of the BSD SIGCHLD signal are normal and its semantics
are similar to all other signals.
• When the signal occurs, the status of a child has changed, and we need
to call one of the wait functions to determine what has happened.
• If the process specifically sets its disposition to SIG_IGN, children of the calling process
will not generate zombie processes. [p333]
• 4.4BSD always generates zombies if SIGCHLD is ignored. If we want to avoid zombies, we
have to wait for our children.
• If we set the disposition of SIGCLD to be caught, the kernel immediately checks whether
any child processes are ready to be waited for and, if so, calls the SIGCLD handler. [p333-
335]
• FreeBSD 8.0 and Mac OS X 10.6.8 don’t exhibit this problem, because BSD-based
systems generally don’t support historical System V semantics for SIGCLD.
• Linux 3.2.0 also doesn’t exhibit this problem, because it doesn’t call the SIGCHLD signal
handler when a process arranges to catch SIGCHLD and child processes are ready to be
waited for, even though SIGCLD and SIGCHLD are defined to be the same value.
• Solaris avoids this problem by including extra code in the kernel.
Reliable-Signal Terminology and Semantics
• A signal is generated for a process (or sent to a process) when the event that causes the signal occurs.
• When the signal is generated, the kernel usually sets a flag of some form in the process table.
The event could be:
• Hardware exception (e.g., divide by 0),
• Software condition (e.g., an alarm timer expiring),
• Terminal-generated signal,
• A call to the kill function.
• A signal is delivered to a process when the action for a signal is taken.
• A signal is pending during the time between its generation and delivery.
• A process has the option of blocking the delivery of a signal.
• If a signal that is blocked is generated for a process, and if the action for that signal is either the default action or
to catch the signal, then the signal remains pending for the process until the process either:
• unblocks the signal, or
• changes the action to ignore the signal.
• The system determines what to do with a blocked signal when the signal is delivered, not when it’s generated. This
allows the process to change the action for the signal before it’s delivered. The sigpending function (Section 10.13)
can be called by a process to determine which signals are blocked and pending.
• Each process has a signal mask that defines the set of signals currently blocked from
delivery to that process.
• This mask has one bit for each possible signal.
• If the bit is on for a given signal, that signal is currently blocked.
• A process can examine and change its current signal mask by calling sigprocmask
• Each process has a signal mask that defines the set of signals currently blocked from
delivery to that process.
• since it is possible for the number of signals to exceed the number of bits in an integer
• POSIX.1 defines a data type, called sigset_t, that holds a signal set.
• The signal mask is stored in one of these signal sets. five functions that operate on
signal sets
kill and raise Functions
#include <signal.h>

• The kill function sends a signal to a int kill(pid_t pid, int signo);
process or a group of processes. int raise(int signo);
• The raise function allows a process to
send a signal to itself.
• The raise function was originally defined /* Both return: 0 if OK, −1 on error */
by ISO C. POSIX.1 includes it to align The call:
itself with the ISO C standard, but
POSIX.1 extends the specification of
raise to deal with threads. raise(signo);
• Since ISO C does not deal with multiple is equivalent to the call:
processes, it could not define a function,
such as kill, that requires a process ID
argument. kill(getpid(), signo);
• There are four different conditions for the pid • A process needs permission to send a
argument to kill: signal to another process:
• pid > 0. The signal is sent to the process whose
process ID is pid. • The superuser can send a signal to any
• pid == 0 The signal is sent to all processes whose process.
process group ID equals the process group ID of the
sender and for which the sender has permission to • For other users, the real or effective user
send the signal. ID of the sender has to equal the real or
• pid < 0. The signal is sent to all processes whose effective user ID of the receiver. If the
process group ID equals the absolute value of pid implementation supports
and for which the sender has permission to send the _POSIX_SAVED_IDS, the saved set-user-ID
signal.
of the receiver is checked instead of its
• pid == −1. The signal is sent to all processes on the
system for which the sender has permission to send
effective user ID.
the signal. • One special case for the permission
• Note that the term all processes in the four testing also exists: if the signal being sent
conditions above excludes an implementation- is SIGCONT,aprocess can send it to any
defined set of system processes, including kernel
processes and init (pid 1).
other process in the same session.
alarm and pause Functions

• The alarm function sets a timer that will expire at a specified time in the
future.
• When the timer expires, the SIGALRM signal is generated.
• If we ignore or don’t catch this signal, its default action is to terminate
the process.

• #include <unistd.h>
• unsigned int alarm(unsigned int seconds);
• /* Returns: 0 or number of seconds until previously set alarm */
• The seconds value is the number of clock seconds in the future when the signal
should be generated. When that time occurs, the signal is generated by the kernel,
although additional time could elapse before the process gets control to handle
the signal, because of processor scheduling delays.
• There is only one of these alarm clocks per process. If alarm is called with a
previously registered alarm clock not yet expired, then:
• The number of seconds left for previous alarm clock is returned as the value of this
function.
• The previous alarm clock is replaced by the new value.
• If a previously registered alarm clock for the process has not yet expired and if the
seconds value is 0, the previous alarm clock is canceled. The number of seconds
left for that previous alarm clock is still returned as the value of the function.
• The pause function suspends the calling process until a signal is
caught.

• #include <unistd.h>

• int pause(void);

• /* Returns: −1 with errno set to EINTR */