On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 12:49:10PM -0500, Ben Beuchler wrote:
> Hola...
>
> Like a good boy, I use tcpserver for all my qmail stuff. What has me
> curious is why from time to time I will see multiple copies of tcpserver
> spawn. My understanding was that as connections are made, tcpserver
> just spawns the correct program, not another copy of itself. However, I
> will frequently see several copies of, say, my POP3 tcpserver running.
> All with identical command lines. If I check back later it may be back
> down to just a sole instance.
>
> Is this normal behavior?
I'd say it's normal. Note that a 'spawn' is actually a fork followed
by an exec. There is a small window between the fork and exec when
the spawned process is still a copy of tcpserver. Presumably you
are catching it then perhaps because there are potential delays
in that window or perhap while the OS is loading in the execed
code.
Regards.
