.\" .\" Copyright (c) 2013 Robert N. M. Watson .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" This software was developed by SRI International and the University of .\" Cambridge Computer Laboratory under DARPA/AFRL contract (FA8750-10-C-0237) .\" ("CTSRD"), as part of the DARPA CRASH research programme. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $FreeBSD: releng/12.2/share/man/man4/procdesc.4 339356 2018-10-14 18:42:54Z trasz $ .\" .Dd October 14, 2018 .Dt PROCDESC 4 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm procdesc .Nd process descriptor facility .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm is a file-descriptor-oriented interface to process signalling and control, which supplements historic .Ux .Xr fork 2 , .Xr kill 2 , and .Xr wait4 2 primitives with new system calls such as .Xr pdfork 2 , .Xr pdkill 2 , and .Xr pdwait4 2 . .Nm is designed for use with .Xr capsicum 4 , replacing process identifiers with capability-oriented references. However, it can also be used independently of .Xr capsicum 4 , displacing PIDs, which may otherwise suffer from race conditions. Given a process descriptor, it is possible to query its conventional PID using .Xr pdgetpid 2 . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr fork 2 , .Xr kill 2 , .Xr pdfork 2 , .Xr pdgetpid 2 , .Xr pdkill 2 , .Xr pdwait4 2 , .Xr kqueue 2 , .Xr wait4 2 , .Xr capsicum 4 .Sh HISTORY .Nm first appeared in .Fx 9.0 , and was developed at the University of Cambridge. .Sh AUTHORS .Nm was developed by .An -nosplit .An Robert Watson Aq Mt rwatson@FreeBSD.org and .An Jonathan Anderson Aq Mt jonathan@FreeBSD.org at the University of Cambridge, and .An Ben Laurie Aq Mt benl@FreeBSD.org and .An Kris Kennaway Aq Mt kris@FreeBSD.org at Google, Inc.