.\" $OpenBSD: __tfork_thread.3,v 1.6 2013/04/06 07:20:46 tedu Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2011 Philip Guenther <guenther@openbsd.org>
.\"
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.Dd $Mdocdate: April 6 2013 $
.Dt __TFORK_THREAD 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm __tfork_thread ,
.Nm __tfork
.Nd create a new kernel thread in the current process
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In unistd.h
.Bd -literal
struct __tfork {
        void    *tf_tcb;            /* TCB address for new thread */
        pid_t   *tf_tid;            /* where to write child's TID */
        void    *tf_stack;          /* stack address for new thread */
};
.Ed
.Pp
.Ft pid_t
.Fn __tfork_thread "const struct __tfork *params" "size_t psize" "void (*startfunc)(void *)" "void *startarg"
.Ft pid_t
.Fn __tfork "const struct __tfork *params" "size_t psize"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn __tfork_thread
function creates a new kernel thread in the current process.
The new thread starts by calling
.Fa startfunc ,
passing
.Fa startarg
as the only argument.
If
.Fa startfunc
returns, the thread will exit.
.Pp
The
.Fa params
argument provides parameters used by the kernel during thread creation.
The new thread's thread control block (TCB) address is set to
.Em tf_tcb .
If
.Em tf_tid
is not NULL, the new thread's PID is returned to the user at that
address, with the guarantee that this is done before returning to
userspace in either the current thread or the new thread.
If
.Em tf_stack
is not NULL, the new thread's stack is initialized to start at that address.
On hppa and hppa64,
that is the lowest address used;
on other architectures that is the address after the highest address used.
.Pp
The
.Fa psize
argument provides the size of the
.Vt "struct __tfork"
passed via the
.Fa params
argument.
.Pp
The underlying system call used to create the thread is
.Fn __tfork .
Because the new thread returns without a stack frame,
the syscall cannot be directly used from C and is therefore not
provided as a function.
However, the syscall may show up in the output of
.Xr kdump 1 .
.Sh RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion,
.Fn __tfork_thread
returns in the current thread the PID of new thread.
The
.Fn __tfork
syscall itself, on success, returns a value of 0 in the new thread
and returns the PID of the new thread to the current thread.
Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned, no thread is created, and the
global variable
.Va errno
is set to indicate an error.
.Sh ERRORS
.Fn __tfork_thread
and
.Fn __tfork
will fail and no thread will be created if:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er ENOMEM
Cannot allocate memory.
The new process image required more memory than was allowed by the hardware or
by system-imposed memory management constraints.
A lack of swap space is normally temporary; however, a lack of core is not.
Soft limits may be increased to their corresponding hard limits.
.It Bq Er EINVAL
Invalid argument.
Some invalid argument was supplied.
.It Bq Er EAGAIN
Resource temporarily unavailable.
The system-imposed limit on the total
number of threads under execution would be exceeded.
This limit is configuration-dependent.
.It Bq Er EAGAIN
Resource temporarily unavailable.
The system-imposed limit
.Dv MAXUPRC
on the total number of threads under execution by a single user would be
exceeded.
.Dv MAXUPRC
is currently defined in
.Aq Pa sys/param.h
as
.Dv CHILD_MAX ,
which is currently defined as 80 in
.Aq Pa sys/syslimits.h .
.El
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Fn __tfork_thread
function and
.Fn __tfork
syscall are specific to
.Ox
and should not be used in portable applications.
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn __tfork_thread
function and
.Fn __tfork
syscall appeared in
.Ox 5.1 .