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-.\" Copyright (c) 2013 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
-.\" and Copyright (c) 2012 by Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
-.\"
-.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
-.\"
-.\"
-.TH pid_namespaces 7 2023-10-31 "Linux man-pages 6.7"
-.SH NAME
-pid_namespaces \- overview of Linux PID namespaces
-.SH DESCRIPTION
-For an overview of namespaces, see
-.BR namespaces (7).
-.P
-PID namespaces isolate the process ID number space,
-meaning that processes in different PID namespaces can have the same PID.
-PID namespaces allow containers to provide functionality
-such as suspending/resuming the set of processes in the container and
-migrating the container to a new host
-while the processes inside the container maintain the same PIDs.
-.P
-PIDs in a new PID namespace start at 1,
-somewhat like a standalone system, and calls to
-.BR fork (2),
-.BR vfork (2),
-or
-.BR clone (2)
-will produce processes with PIDs that are unique within the namespace.
-.P
-Use of PID namespaces requires a kernel that is configured with the
-.B CONFIG_PID_NS
-option.
-.\"
-.\" ============================================================
-.\"
-.SS The namespace "init" process
-The first process created in a new namespace
-(i.e., the process created using
-.BR clone (2)
-with the
-.B CLONE_NEWPID
-flag, or the first child created by a process after a call to
-.BR unshare (2)
-using the
-.B CLONE_NEWPID
-flag) has the PID 1, and is the "init" process for the namespace (see
-.BR init (1)).
-This process becomes the parent of any child processes that are orphaned
-because a process that resides in this PID namespace terminated
-(see below for further details).
-.P
-If the "init" process of a PID namespace terminates,
-the kernel terminates all of the processes in the namespace via a
-.B SIGKILL
-signal.
-This behavior reflects the fact that the "init" process
-is essential for the correct operation of a PID namespace.
-In this case, a subsequent
-.BR fork (2)
-into this PID namespace fail with the error
-.BR ENOMEM ;
-it is not possible to create a new process in a PID namespace whose "init"
-process has terminated.
-Such scenarios can occur when, for example,
-a process uses an open file descriptor for a
-.IR /proc/ pid /ns/pid
-file corresponding to a process that was in a namespace to
-.BR setns (2)
-into that namespace after the "init" process has terminated.
-Another possible scenario can occur after a call to
-.BR unshare (2):
-if the first child subsequently created by a
-.BR fork (2)
-terminates, then subsequent calls to
-.BR fork (2)
-fail with
-.BR ENOMEM .
-.P
-Only signals for which the "init" process has established a signal handler
-can be sent to the "init" process by other members of the PID namespace.
-This restriction applies even to privileged processes,
-and prevents other members of the PID namespace from
-accidentally killing the "init" process.
-.P
-Likewise, a process in an ancestor namespace
-can\[em]subject to the usual permission checks described in
-.BR kill (2)\[em]send
-signals to the "init" process of a child PID namespace only
-if the "init" process has established a handler for that signal.
-(Within the handler, the
-.I siginfo_t
-.I si_pid
-field described in
-.BR sigaction (2)
-will be zero.)
-.B SIGKILL
-or
-.B SIGSTOP
-are treated exceptionally:
-these signals are forcibly delivered when sent from an ancestor PID namespace.
-Neither of these signals can be caught by the "init" process,
-and so will result in the usual actions associated with those signals
-(respectively, terminating and stopping the process).
-.P
-Starting with Linux 3.4, the
-.BR reboot (2)
-system call causes a signal to be sent to the namespace "init" process.
-See
-.BR reboot (2)
-for more details.
-.\"
-.\" ============================================================
-.\"
-.SS Nesting PID namespaces
-PID namespaces can be nested:
-each PID namespace has a parent,
-except for the initial ("root") PID namespace.
-The parent of a PID namespace is the PID namespace of the process that
-created the namespace using
-.BR clone (2)
-or
-.BR unshare (2).
-PID namespaces thus form a tree,
-with all namespaces ultimately tracing their ancestry to the root namespace.
-Since Linux 3.7,
-.\" commit f2302505775fd13ba93f034206f1e2a587017929
-.\" The kernel constant MAX_PID_NS_LEVEL
-the kernel limits the maximum nesting depth for PID namespaces to 32.
-.P
-A process is visible to other processes in its PID namespace,
-and to the processes in each direct ancestor PID namespace
-going back to the root PID namespace.
-In this context, "visible" means that one process
-can be the target of operations by another process using
-system calls that specify a process ID.
-Conversely, the processes in a child PID namespace can't see
-processes in the parent and further removed ancestor namespaces.
-More succinctly: a process can see (e.g., send signals with
-.BR kill (2),
-set nice values with
-.BR setpriority (2),
-etc.) only processes contained in its own PID namespace
-and in descendants of that namespace.
-.P
-A process has one process ID in each of the layers of the PID
-namespace hierarchy in which is visible,
-and walking back though each direct ancestor namespace
-through to the root PID namespace.
-System calls that operate on process IDs always
-operate using the process ID that is visible in the
-PID namespace of the caller.
-A call to
-.BR getpid (2)
-always returns the PID associated with the namespace in which
-the process was created.
-.P
-Some processes in a PID namespace may have parents
-that are outside of the namespace.
-For example, the parent of the initial process in the namespace
-(i.e., the
-.BR init (1)
-process with PID 1) is necessarily in another namespace.
-Likewise, the direct children of a process that uses
-.BR setns (2)
-to cause its children to join a PID namespace are in a different
-PID namespace from the caller of
-.BR setns (2).
-Calls to
-.BR getppid (2)
-for such processes return 0.
-.P
-While processes may freely descend into child PID namespaces
-(e.g., using
-.BR setns (2)
-with a PID namespace file descriptor),
-they may not move in the other direction.
-That is to say, processes may not enter any ancestor namespaces
-(parent, grandparent, etc.).
-Changing PID namespaces is a one-way operation.
-.P
-The
-.B NS_GET_PARENT
-.BR ioctl (2)
-operation can be used to discover the parental relationship
-between PID namespaces; see
-.BR ioctl_ns (2).
-.\"
-.\" ============================================================
-.\"
-.SS setns(2) and unshare(2) semantics
-Calls to
-.BR setns (2)
-that specify a PID namespace file descriptor
-and calls to
-.BR unshare (2)
-with the
-.B CLONE_NEWPID
-flag cause children subsequently created
-by the caller to be placed in a different PID namespace from the caller.
-(Since Linux 4.12, that PID namespace is shown via the
-.IR /proc/ pid /ns/pid_for_children
-file, as described in
-.BR namespaces (7).)
-These calls do not, however,
-change the PID namespace of the calling process,
-because doing so would change the caller's idea of its own PID
-(as reported by
-.BR getpid ()),
-which would break many applications and libraries.
-.P
-To put things another way:
-a process's PID namespace membership is determined when the process is created
-and cannot be changed thereafter.
-Among other things, this means that the parental relationship
-between processes mirrors the parental relationship between PID namespaces:
-the parent of a process is either in the same namespace
-or resides in the immediate parent PID namespace.
-.P
-A process may call
-.BR unshare (2)
-with the
-.B CLONE_NEWPID
-flag only once.
-After it has performed this operation, its
-.IR /proc/ pid /ns/pid_for_children
-symbolic link will be empty until the first child is created in the namespace.
-.\"
-.\" ============================================================
-.\"
-.SS Adoption of orphaned children
-When a child process becomes orphaned, it is reparented to the "init"
-process in the PID namespace of its parent
-(unless one of the nearer ancestors of the parent employed the
-.BR prctl (2)
-.B PR_SET_CHILD_SUBREAPER
-command to mark itself as the reaper of orphaned descendant processes).
-Note that because of the
-.BR setns (2)
-and
-.BR unshare (2)
-semantics described above, this may be the "init" process in the PID
-namespace that is the
-.I parent
-of the child's PID namespace,
-rather than the "init" process in the child's own PID namespace.
-.\" Furthermore, by definition, the parent of the "init" process
-.\" of a PID namespace resides in the parent PID namespace.
-.\"
-.\" ============================================================
-.\"
-.SS Compatibility of CLONE_NEWPID with other CLONE_* flags
-In current versions of Linux,
-.B CLONE_NEWPID
-can't be combined with
-.BR CLONE_THREAD .
-Threads are required to be in the same PID namespace such that
-the threads in a process can send signals to each other.
-Similarly, it must be possible to see all of the threads
-of a process in the
-.BR proc (5)
-filesystem.
-Additionally, if two threads were in different PID
-namespaces, the process ID of the process sending a signal
-could not be meaningfully encoded when a signal is sent
-(see the description of the
-.I siginfo_t
-type in
-.BR sigaction (2)).
-Since this is computed when a signal is enqueued,
-a signal queue shared by processes in multiple PID namespaces
-would defeat that.
-.P
-.\" Note these restrictions were all introduced in
-.\" 8382fcac1b813ad0a4e68a838fc7ae93fa39eda0
-.\" when CLONE_NEWPID|CLONE_VM was disallowed
-In earlier versions of Linux,
-.B CLONE_NEWPID
-was additionally disallowed (failing with the error
-.BR EINVAL )
-in combination with
-.B CLONE_SIGHAND
-.\" (restriction lifted in faf00da544045fdc1454f3b9e6d7f65c841de302)
-(before Linux 4.3) as well as
-.\" (restriction lifted in e79f525e99b04390ca4d2366309545a836c03bf1)
-.B CLONE_VM
-(before Linux 3.12).
-The changes that lifted these restrictions have also been ported to
-earlier stable kernels.
-.\"
-.\" ============================================================
-.\"
-.SS /proc and PID namespaces
-A
-.I /proc
-filesystem shows (in the
-.IR /proc/ pid
-directories) only processes visible in the PID namespace
-of the process that performed the mount, even if the
-.I /proc
-filesystem is viewed from processes in other namespaces.
-.P
-After creating a new PID namespace,
-it is useful for the child to change its root directory
-and mount a new procfs instance at
-.I /proc
-so that tools such as
-.BR ps (1)
-work correctly.
-If a new mount namespace is simultaneously created by including
-.B CLONE_NEWNS
-in the
-.I flags
-argument of
-.BR clone (2)
-or
-.BR unshare (2),
-then it isn't necessary to change the root directory:
-a new procfs instance can be mounted directly over
-.IR /proc .
-.P
-From a shell, the command to mount
-.I /proc
-is:
-.P
-.in +4n
-.EX
-$ mount \-t proc proc /proc
-.EE
-.in
-.P
-Calling
-.BR readlink (2)
-on the path
-.I /proc/self
-yields the process ID of the caller in the PID namespace of the procfs mount
-(i.e., the PID namespace of the process that mounted the procfs).
-This can be useful for introspection purposes,
-when a process wants to discover its PID in other namespaces.
-.\"
-.\" ============================================================
-.\"
-.SS /proc files
-.TP
-.BR /proc/sys/kernel/ns_last_pid " (since Linux 3.3)"
-.\" commit b8f566b04d3cddd192cfd2418ae6d54ac6353792
-This file
-(which is virtualized per PID namespace)
-displays the last PID that was allocated in this PID namespace.
-When the next PID is allocated,
-the kernel will search for the lowest unallocated PID
-that is greater than this value,
-and when this file is subsequently read it will show that PID.
-.IP
-This file is writable by a process that has the
-.B CAP_SYS_ADMIN
-or (since Linux 5.9)
-.B CAP_CHECKPOINT_RESTORE
-capability inside the user namespace that owns the PID namespace.
-.\" This ability is necessary to support checkpoint restore in user-space
-This makes it possible to determine the PID that is allocated
-to the next process that is created inside this PID namespace.
-.\"
-.\" ============================================================
-.\"
-.SS Miscellaneous
-When a process ID is passed over a UNIX domain socket to a
-process in a different PID namespace (see the description of
-.B SCM_CREDENTIALS
-in
-.BR unix (7)),
-it is translated into the corresponding PID value in
-the receiving process's PID namespace.
-.SH STANDARDS
-Linux.
-.SH EXAMPLES
-See
-.BR user_namespaces (7).
-.SH SEE ALSO
-.BR clone (2),
-.BR reboot (2),
-.BR setns (2),
-.BR unshare (2),
-.BR proc (5),
-.BR capabilities (7),
-.BR credentials (7),
-.BR mount_namespaces (7),
-.BR namespaces (7),
-.BR user_namespaces (7),
-.BR switch_root (8)