vfor.2 (2011 03)

vfork(2) vfork(2)

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

function, 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 to

SIG_DFL or SIG_IGN,orif

sigaction() is used (see sigaction (2)).

AUTHOR

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