What are the different types of systems?

Answer 1

In computing, the process identifier (normally referred to as the process ID or just PID) is a number used by some operating system kernels (such as that of UNIX, Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows) to uniquely identify a process. This number may be used as a parameter in various function calls allowing processes to be manipulated, such as adjusting the process's priority or killing it altogether.

A parent process is a computer process that has created one or more child processes.

In UNIX, every process except process 0 (the swapper) is created when another process executes the fork system call. The process that invoked fork is the parent process and the newly-created process is the child process. Every process (except process 0) has one parent process, but can have many child processes.

The kernel identifies each process by its process identifier (PID). Process 0 is a special process that is created when the system boots; after forking a child process (process 1), process 0 becomes the swapper process. Process 1, known as init, is the ancestor of every other process in the system.

When a child process terminates execution, either by calling the exit system call, causing a fatal execution error, or receiving a terminating signal, an exit status is returned to the operating system. The parent process is informed of its child's termination through a SIGCHLD signal. A parent will typically retrieve its child's exit status by calling the wait system call. However, if a parent does not do so, the child process becomes a zombie process.

A child process is a computer process created by another process (the parent process).

A child process inherits most of its attributes, such as open files, from its parent. In UNIX, a child process is in fact created (using fork) as a copy of the parent. The child process can then overlay itself with a different program (using exec) as required.

Each process may create many child processes but will have at most one parent process; if a process does not have a parent this usually indicates that it was created directly by the kernel. In some systems, including UNIX based systems such as Linux, the very first process (called init) is started by the kernel at booting time and never terminates (see Linux startup process); other parentless processes may be launched to carry out various daemon tasks in userspace. Another way for a process to end up without a parent is if its parent dies, leaving an orphan process; but in this case it will shortly be adopted by init.

The exec functions of Unix-like operating systems are a collection of functions that causes the running process to be completely replaced by the program passed as argument to the function. As a new process is not created, the process ID (PID) does not change across an execute, but the data, heap and stack of the calling process are replaced by those of the new process.

In the execl, execlp, execv, and execvp calls, the child process inherits the parent's environment.

Files open when an exec call is made remain open in the new process. All open files must be flushed before an exec call. The exec calls do not preserve the translation modes of open files. If the child process uses files inherited from the parent, setmode function can be called to set the translation mode to the desired mode.

In MS-DOS environments, a program executed with one of the exec functions is always loaded into memory as if the "maximum allocation" in the program's executable file header is set to default value 0xFFFF. The EXEHDR utility can be used to change the maximum allocation field of a program. However, if this is done and the program is invoked with one of the exec functions, the program might behave differently from a program invoked directly from the operating-system command line or with one of the spawn functions.

Many Unix shells also offer an "exec" built-in command that replaces the shell process with the specified program.[1] "Wrapper" scripts often use this command to run a program (either directly or through an interpreter or virtual machine) after setting environment variables or other configuration. By using exec, the resources used by the shell program do not need to stay in use after the program is started. [2]

A computer process terminates its execution by making an exit system call. More generally, an exit in a multithreading environment means that a thread of execution has stopped running. The operating system reclaims resources (memory, files, etc.) that were used by the process. The process is said to be a dead process after it terminates.

In modern computer operating systems, a process (or task) may wait on another process to complete its execution. In most systems, a parent process can create an independently executing child process. The parent process may then issue a wait system call, which suspends the execution of the parent process while the child executes. When the child process terminates, it returns an exit status to the operating system, which is then returned to the waiting parent process. The parent process then resumes execution.

Fork is the name of the system call that the parent process uses to "divide" itself ("fork") into two identical processes. After calling fork(), the created child process is actually an exact copy of the parent - which would probably be of limited use - so it replaces itself with another process using the system call exec().

In computing, kill is a command that is used in several popular operating systems to request the termination of a process that is currently running on the system.