Understanding the Linux Kernel, Second Edition

Chapter 3. Processes

The concept of a process is fundamental to any multiprogramming operating system. A process is usually defined as an instance of a program in execution; thus, if 16 users are running vi at once, there are 16 separate processes (although they can share the same executable code). Processes are often called tasks or threads in the Linux source code.

In this chapter, we discuss static properties of processes and then describe how process switching is performed by the kernel. The last two sections describe how processes can be created and destroyed. We also describe how Linux supports multithreaded applications — as mentioned in Chapter 1, it relies on so-called lightweight processes (LWP).

Processes, Lightweight Processes, and Threads

The term “process” is often used with several different meanings. In this book, we stick to the usual OS textbook definition: a process is an instance of a program in execution. You might think of it as the collection of data structures that fully describes how far the execution of the program has progressed.

Processes are like human beings: they are generated, they have a more or less significant life, they optionally generate one or more child processes, and eventually they die. A small difference is that sex is not really common among processes — each process has just one parent.

From the kernel’s point of view, the purpose of a process is to act as an entity to which system resources (CPU time, memory, etc.) are allocated.