HP-UX Reference (11i v1 05/09) - 2 System Calls (vol 5)

vfork(2) vfork(2)

Series 800

Process times for the parent and child processes within the [

vfork,exec] window may be inaccurate.

Parent and child processes share the same stack space within the [

vfork,exec] window. If the size

of the stack has been changed within this window by the child process (return from or call to a func-

tion, for example), it is likely that the parent and child processes will be killed with signal

SIGSEGV

or SIGBUS.

In the [vfork,exec] window, a call to

signal() (see signal(2) that installs a catching function

can affect handling of the signal by the parent. The parent is not affected if the handling is being set

SIG_DFL or SIG_IGN, or if either

sigaction() or sigvector() is used (see sigaction(2)

and sigvector(2)).

AUTHOR

vfork() was developed by the University of California, Berkeley.