.\" Copyright (c) 1999 Andries Brouwer (aeb@cwi.nl), 1 Nov 1999
.\"
.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
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.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
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.\" 1999-11-10: Merged text taken from the page contributed by
.\" Reed H. Petty (rhp@draper.net)
.\"
.TH VFORK 2 2012-08-05 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
vfork \- create a child process and block parent
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B #include <sys/types.h>
.br
.B #include <unistd.h>
.sp
.B pid_t vfork(void);
.sp
.in -4n
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
.BR feature_test_macros (7)):
.in
.sp
.BR vfork ():
.ad l
.RS 4
.PD 0
.TP 4
Since glibc 2.12:
.nf
_BSD_SOURCE ||
    (_XOPEN_SOURCE\ >=\ 500 ||
        _XOPEN_SOURCE\ &&\ _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED) &&
    !(_POSIX_C_SOURCE\ >=\ 200809L || _XOPEN_SOURCE\ >=\ 700)
.TP 4
.fi
Before glibc 2.12:
_BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE\ >=\ 500 ||
_XOPEN_SOURCE\ &&\ _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED
.PD
.RE
.ad b
.SH DESCRIPTION
.SS Standard description
(From POSIX.1)
The
.BR vfork ()
function has the same effect as
.BR fork (2),
except that the behavior is undefined if the process created by
.BR vfork ()
either modifies any data other than a variable of type
.I pid_t
used to store the return value from
.BR vfork (),
or returns from the function in which
.BR vfork ()
was called, or calls any other function before successfully calling
.BR _exit (2)
or one of the
.BR exec (3)
family of functions.
.SS Linux description
.BR vfork (),
just like
.BR fork (2),
creates a child process of the calling process.
For details and return value and errors, see
.BR fork (2).
.PP
.BR vfork ()
is a special case of
.BR clone (2).
It is used to create new processes without copying the page tables of
the parent process.
It may be useful in performance-sensitive applications
where a child is created which then immediately issues an
.BR execve (2).
.PP
.BR vfork ()
differs from
.BR fork (2)
in that the calling thread is suspended until the child terminates
(either normally,
by calling
.BR _exit (2),
or abnormally, after delivery of a fatal signal),
or it makes a call to
.BR execve (2).
Until that point, the child shares all memory with its parent,
including the stack.
The child must not return from the current function or call
.BR exit (3),
but may call
.BR _exit (2).

As with
.BR fork (2),
the child process created by
.BR vfork ()
inherits copies of various of the caller's process attributes
(e.g., file descriptors, signal dispositions, and current working directory);
the
.BR vfork ()
call differs only in the treatment of the virtual address space,
as described above.

Signals sent to the parent
arrive after the child releases the parent's memory
(i.e., after the child terminates
or calls
.BR execve (2)).
.SS Historic description
Under Linux,
.BR fork (2)
is implemented using copy-on-write pages, so the only penalty incurred by
.BR fork (2)
is the time and memory required to duplicate the parent's page tables,
and to create a unique task structure for the child.
However, in the bad old days a
.BR fork (2)
would require making a complete copy of the caller's data space,
often needlessly, since usually immediately afterward an
.BR exec (3)
is done.
Thus, for greater efficiency, BSD introduced the
.BR vfork ()
system call, which did not fully copy the address space of
the parent process, but borrowed the parent's memory and thread
of control until a call to
.BR execve (2)
or an exit occurred.
The parent process was suspended while the
child was using its resources.
The use of
.BR vfork ()
was tricky: for example, not modifying data
in the parent process depended on knowing which variables were
held in a register.
.SH CONFORMING TO
4.3BSD; POSIX.1-2001 (but marked OBSOLETE).
POSIX.1-2008 removes the specification of
.BR vfork ().

The requirements put on
.BR vfork ()
by the standards are weaker than those put on
.BR fork (2),
so an implementation where the two are synonymous is compliant.
In particular, the programmer cannot rely on the parent
remaining blocked until the child either terminates or calls
.BR execve (2),
and cannot rely on any specific behavior with respect to shared memory.
.\" In AIXv3.1 vfork is equivalent to fork.
.SH NOTES
.PP
Some consider the semantics of
.BR vfork ()
to be an architectural blemish, and the 4.2BSD man page stated:
"This system call will be eliminated when proper system sharing mechanisms
are implemented.
Users should not depend on the memory sharing semantics of
.BR vfork ()
as it will, in that case, be made synonymous to
.BR fork (2).\c
"
However, even though modern memory management hardware
has decreased the performance difference between
.BR fork (2)
and
.BR vfork (),
there are various reasons why Linux and other systems have retained
.BR vfork ():
.IP * 3
Some performance-critical applications require the small performance
advantage conferred by
.BR vfork ().
.IP *
.BR vfork ()
can be implemented on systems that lack a memory-management unit (MMU), but
.BR fork (2)
can't be implemented on such systems.
(POSIX.1-2008 removed
.BR vfork ()
from the standard; the POSIX rationale for the
.BR posix_spawn (3)
function notes that that function,
which provides functionality equivalent to
.BR fork (2)+ exec (3),
is designed to be implementable on systems that lack an MMU.)
.\" http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4259629/what-is-the-difference-between-fork-and-vfork
.\" http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/subprocess/subprocess.html
.\" http://mailman.uclinux.org/pipermail/uclinux-dev/2009-April/000684.html
.SS Linux notes
Fork handlers established using
.BR pthread_atfork (3)
are not called when a multithreaded program employing
the NPTL threading library calls
.BR vfork ().
Fork handlers are called in this case in a program using the
LinuxThreads threading library.
(See
.BR pthreads (7)
for a description of Linux threading libraries.)

A call to
.BR vfork ()
is equivalent to calling
.BR clone (2)
with
.I flags
specified as:

     CLONE_VM | CLONE_VFORK | SIGCHLD
.SS History
The
.BR vfork ()
system call appeared in 3.0BSD.
.\" In the release notes for 4.2BSD Sam Leffler wrote: `vfork: Is still
.\" present, but definitely on its way out'.
In 4.4BSD it was made synonymous to
.BR fork (2)
but NetBSD introduced it again,
cf.
.UR http://www.netbsd.org\:/Documentation\:/kernel\:/vfork.html
.UE .
In Linux, it has been equivalent to
.BR fork (2)
until 2.2.0-pre6 or so.
Since 2.2.0-pre9 (on i386, somewhat later on
other architectures) it is an independent system call.
Support was added in glibc 2.0.112.
.SH BUGS
.PP
Details of the signal handling are obscure and differ between systems.
The BSD man page states:
"To avoid a possible deadlock situation, processes that are children
in the middle of a
.BR vfork ()
are never sent
.B SIGTTOU
or
.B SIGTTIN
signals; rather, output or
.IR ioctl s
are allowed and input attempts result in an end-of-file indication."
.\"
.\" As far as I can tell, the following is not true in 2.6.19:
.\" Currently (Linux 2.3.25),
.\" .BR strace (1)
.\" cannot follow
.\" .BR vfork ()
.\" and requires a kernel patch.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR clone (2),
.BR execve (2),
.BR fork (2),
.BR unshare (2),
.BR wait (2)
.SH COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.74 of the Linux
.I man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
information about reporting bugs,
and the latest version of this page,
can be found at
\%http://www.kernel.org/doc/man\-pages/.