Advanced · Module 6 · Lesson 1 of 10
Process Lifecycle: fork, execve, and Address Space Duplication
Spawn isolated process address spaces with fork, trace Copy-on-Write memory mechanics, replace process images using execve, and control descriptor inheritance.
By the end you can
- Trace dual execution branches using the distinct return values of fork
- Inspect how the CPU Memory Management Unit implements Copy-on-Write (COW) page sharing
- Replace calling process memory images atomically with new binaries using execve
- Construct null-terminated argument and environment vectors for executable loading
Builds on Memory-Mapped I/O with mmap and msync.
01 · A question first
Why does fork() return once in the parent process but return a second time in the child, even though you only called it once? And why does cloning a process consuming 32 gigabytes of RAM execute in less than a millisecond without exhausting system memory?
Make a guess before you read on.
02 · The idea
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What's inside
- Start with the problem
- How the idea works
- Why it is correct
- What it costs
- Pitfalls and variations
- Where it is used
03 · Practice
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