xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/psignal.9 (revision 2e3507c25e42292b45a5482e116d278f5515d04d)
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28.\"	$NetBSD: psignal.9,v 1.1 1996/06/22 22:57:35 pk Exp $
29.\"
30.Dd July 14, 2023
31.Dt PSIGNAL 9
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm psignal ,
35.Nm kern_psignal ,
36.Nm pgsignal ,
37.Nm tdsignal
38.Nd post signal to a thread, process, or process group
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.In sys/types.h
41.In sys/signalvar.h
42.Ft void
43.Fn kern_psignal "struct proc *p" "int signum"
44.Ft void
45.Fn pgsignal "struct pgrp *pgrp" "int signum" "int checkctty"
46.Ft void
47.Fn tdsignal "struct thread *td" "int signum"
48.Sh DESCRIPTION
49These functions post a signal to a thread or one or more processes.
50The argument
51.Fa signum
52common to all three functions should be in the range
53.Bq 1- Ns Dv NSIG .
54.Pp
55The
56.Fn kern_psignal
57function posts signal number
58.Fa signum
59to the process represented by the process structure
60.Fa p .
61The
62.Fn kern_psignal
63function used to be called
64.Fn psignal
65but was renamed in order to eliminate a name collision with the libc
66function of that name and facilitate code reuse.
67With a few exceptions noted below, the target process signal disposition is
68updated and is marked as runnable, so further handling of the signal is done
69in the context of the target process after a context switch.
70Note that
71.Fn kern_psignal
72does not by itself cause a context switch to happen.
73.Pp
74The target process is not marked as runnable in the following cases:
75.Bl -bullet -offset indent
76.It
77The target process is sleeping uninterruptibly.
78The signal will be
79noticed when the process returns from the system call or trap.
80.It
81The target process is currently ignoring the signal.
82.It
83If a stop signal is sent to a sleeping process that takes the
84default action
85(see
86.Xr sigaction 2 ) ,
87the process is stopped without awakening it.
88.It
89.Dv SIGCONT
90restarts a stopped process
91(or puts them back to sleep)
92regardless of the signal action
93(e.g., blocked or ignored).
94.El
95.Pp
96If the target process is being traced
97.Fn kern_psignal
98behaves as if the target process were taking the default action for
99.Fa signum .
100This allows the tracing process to be notified of the signal.
101.Pp
102The
103.Fn pgsignal
104function posts signal number
105.Fa signum
106to each member of the process group described by
107.Fa pgrp .
108If
109.Fa checkctty
110is non-zero, the signal will be posted only to processes that have
111a controlling terminal.
112.Fn pgsignal
113is implemented by walking along the process list headed by the field
114.Li pg_members
115of the process group structure
116pointed at by
117.Fa pgrp
118and calling
119.Fn kern_psignal
120as appropriate.
121If
122.Fa pgrp
123is
124.Dv NULL
125no action is taken.
126.Pp
127The
128.Fn tdsignal
129function posts signal number
130.Fa signum
131to the thread represented by the thread structure
132.Fa td .
133.Sh SEE ALSO
134.Xr sigaction 2 ,
135.Xr signal 9 ,
136.Xr tsleep 9
137.Sh HISTORY
138The
139.Fn psignal
140function was renamed to
141.Fn kern_psignal
142in
143.Fx 9.0 .
144