On Mon, Jun 28, 2004 at 05:24:37PM -0700, Tyler 'Crackerjack' MacDonald wrote: > I can understand the kernel not knowing that the memory is no longer used > if there was still a straggler process hanging onto it. But when there are > no processes left to access it, why does this continue to happen? If memory > doesnt belong to any process at all, shouldn't it be, well, free? Regular > memory works this way, files and filehandles work this way, why doesn't > shared memory? Is it really that hard to keep a count of running processes > that have opened a shared memory segment?
It wouldn't be hard for the kernel to do at all. But unfortunately, the crack-smokers who wrote POSIX.4 decided that IPC was different. The kernel is *required* to keep them around after all processes exit. > And if this is a deficiency of the linux kernel, shouldn't APR, as a > Portability library, be ready to handle this quirk and clean up for you, > either automatically, or via a portable equivalent to ipcrm, etc? Yes, I would agree with that. -- "Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain
