谈谈守护进程与僵尸进程

04年时维护的第一个商业服务就用了两次fork产生守护进程的做法，前两天在网上看到许多帖子以及一些unix书籍，认为一次fork后产生守护进程足够了，各有道理吧，不过多了一次fork到底是出于什么目的呢？

进程也就是task，看看内核里维护进程的数据结构task_struct，这里有两个成员：

struct task_struct {
	volatile long state;
	int exit_state;
	...
}

看看include/linux/sched.h里的value取值：

#define TASK_RUNNING		0
#define TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE	1
#define TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE	2
#define __TASK_STOPPED		4
#define __TASK_TRACED		8
/* in tsk->exit_state */
#define EXIT_ZOMBIE		16
#define EXIT_DEAD		32
/* in tsk->state again */
#define TASK_DEAD		64
#define TASK_WAKEKILL		128
#define TASK_WAKING		256
#define TASK_STATE_MAX		512

可以看到，进程状态里除了大家都理解的running/interuptible/uninterruptible/stop等状态外，还有一个ZOMBIE状态，这个状态是怎么回事呢？

这是因为linux里的进程都属于一颗树，树的根结点是linux系统初始化结束阶段时启动的init进程，这个进程的pid是1，所有的其他进程都是它的子孙。除了init，任何进程一定有他的父进程，而父进程会负责分配（fork）、回收（wait4）它申请的进程资源。这个树状关系也比较健壮，当某个进程还在运行时，它的父进程却退出了，这个进程却没有成为孤儿进程，因为linux有一个机制，init进程会接管它，成为它的父进程。这也是守护进程的由来了，因为守护进程的其中一个要求就是希望init成为守护进程的父进程。

如果某个进程自身终止了，在调用exit清理完相关的内容文件等资源后，它就会进入ZOMBIE状态，它的父进程会调用wait4来回收这个task_struct，但是，如果父进程一直没有调用wait4去释放子进程的task_struct，问题就来了，这个task_struct谁来回收呢？永远没有人，除非父进程终止后，被init进程接管这个ZOMBIE进程，然后调用wait4来回收进程描述符。如果父进程一直在运行着，这个ZOMBIE会永远的占用系统资源，用KILL发任何信号量也不能释放它。这是很可怕的，因为服务器上可能会出现无数ZOMBIE进程导致机器挂掉。

来看看内核代码吧。进程在退出时执行sys_exit（C程序里在main函数返回会执行到），而它会调用do_exit，do_exit首先清理进程使用的资源，然后调用exit_notify方法，将进程置为僵尸ZOMBIE状态，决定是否要以init进程做为当前进程的父进程，最后通知当前进程的父进程：

kernel/exit.c

static void exit_notify(struct task_struct *tsk)
{
	int state;
	struct task_struct *t;
	struct list_head ptrace_dead, *_p, *_n;

	if (signal_pending(tsk) && !tsk->signal->group_exit
	    && !thread_group_empty(tsk)) {
		/*
		 * This occurs when there was a race between our exit
		 * syscall and a group signal choosing us as the one to
		 * wake up.  It could be that we are the only thread
		 * alerted to check for pending signals, but another thread
		 * should be woken now to take the signal since we will not.
		 * Now we'll wake all the threads in the group just to make
		 * sure someone gets all the pending signals.
		 */
		read_lock(&tasklist_lock);
		spin_lock_irq(&tsk->sighand->siglock);
		for (t = next_thread(tsk); t != tsk; t = next_thread(t))
			if (!signal_pending(t) && !(t->flags & PF_EXITING)) {
				recalc_sigpending_tsk(t);
				if (signal_pending(t))
					signal_wake_up(t, 0);
			}
		spin_unlock_irq(&tsk->sighand->siglock);
		read_unlock(&tasklist_lock);
	}

	write_lock_irq(&tasklist_lock);

	/*
	 * This does two things:
	 *
  	 * A.  Make init inherit all the child processes
	 * B.  Check to see if any process groups have become orphaned
	 *	as a result of our exiting, and if they have any stopped
	 *	jobs, send them a SIGHUP and then a SIGCONT.  (POSIX 3.2.2.2)
	 */

	INIT_LIST_HEAD(&ptrace_dead);
	forget_original_parent(tsk, &ptrace_dead);
	BUG_ON(!list_empty(&tsk->children));
	BUG_ON(!list_empty(&tsk->ptrace_children));

	/*
	 * Check to see if any process groups have become orphaned
	 * as a result of our exiting, and if they have any stopped
	 * jobs, send them a SIGHUP and then a SIGCONT.  (POSIX 3.2.2.2)
	 *
	 * Case i: Our father is in a different pgrp than we are
	 * and we were the only connection outside, so our pgrp
	 * is about to become orphaned.
	 */
	 
	t = tsk->real_parent;
	
	if ((process_group(t) != process_group(tsk)) &&
	    (t->signal->session == tsk->signal->session) &&
	    will_become_orphaned_pgrp(process_group(tsk), tsk) &&
	    has_stopped_jobs(process_group(tsk))) {
		__kill_pg_info(SIGHUP, (void *)1, process_group(tsk));
		__kill_pg_info(SIGCONT, (void *)1, process_group(tsk));
	}

	/* Let father know we died 
	 *
	 * Thread signals are configurable, but you aren't going to use
	 * that to send signals to arbitary processes. 
	 * That stops right now.
	 *
	 * If the parent exec id doesn't match the exec id we saved
	 * when we started then we know the parent has changed security
	 * domain.
	 *
	 * If our self_exec id doesn't match our parent_exec_id then
	 * we have changed execution domain as these two values started
	 * the same after a fork.
	 *	
	 */
	
	if (tsk->exit_signal != SIGCHLD && tsk->exit_signal != -1 &&
	    ( tsk->parent_exec_id != t->self_exec_id  ||
	      tsk->self_exec_id != tsk->parent_exec_id)
	    && !capable(CAP_KILL))
		tsk->exit_signal = SIGCHLD;


	/* If something other than our normal parent is ptracing us, then
	 * send it a SIGCHLD instead of honoring exit_signal.  exit_signal
	 * only has special meaning to our real parent.
	 */
	if (tsk->exit_signal != -1 && thread_group_empty(tsk)) {
		int signal = tsk->parent == tsk->real_parent ? tsk->exit_signal : SIGCHLD;
		do_notify_parent(tsk, signal);
	} else if (tsk->ptrace) {
		do_notify_parent(tsk, SIGCHLD);
	}

	state = EXIT_ZOMBIE;
	if (tsk->exit_signal == -1 && tsk->ptrace == 0)
		state = EXIT_DEAD;
	tsk->exit_state = state;

	/*
	 * Clear these here so that update_process_times() won't try to deliver
	 * itimer, profile or rlimit signals to this task while it is in late exit.
	 */
	tsk->it_virt_value = 0;
	tsk->it_prof_value = 0;

	write_unlock_irq(&tasklist_lock);

	list_for_each_safe(_p, _n, &ptrace_dead) {
		list_del_init(_p);
		t = list_entry(_p,struct task_struct,ptrace_list);
		release_task(t);
	}

	/* If the process is dead, release it - nobody will wait for it */
	if (state == EXIT_DEAD)
		release_task(tsk);

	/* PF_DEAD causes final put_task_struct after we schedule. */
	preempt_disable();
	tsk->flags |= PF_DEAD;
}

大家可以看到这段内核代码的注释非常全。forget_original_parent这个函数还会把该进程的所有子孙进程重设父进程，交给init进程接管。

回过头来，看看为什么守护进程要fork两次。这里有一个假定，父进程生成守护进程后，还有自己的事要做，它的人生意义并不只是为了生成守护进程。这样，如果父进程fork一次创建了一个守护进程，然后继续做其它事时阻塞了，这时守护进程一直在运行，父进程却没有正常退出。如果守护进程因为正常或非正常原因退出了，就会变成ZOMBIE进程。

如果fork两次呢？父进程先fork出一个儿子进程，儿子进程再fork出孙子进程做为守护进程，然后儿子进程立刻退出，守护进程被init进程接管，这样无论父进程做什么事，无论怎么被阻塞，都与守护进程无关了。所以，fork两次的守护进程很安全，避免了僵尸进程出现的可能性。