On Linux, we use the session label for naming the corresponding Linux
process. When looking up the processes via 'ps', the Genode process
hierarchy becomes immediately visible.
Genode used to create new processes by directly forking from the
respective Genode parent using the process library. The forking process
created a PD session at core merely for propagating the PID of the new
process into core (for later destruction). This traditional mechanisms
has the following disadvantages:
First, the PID reported by the creating process to core cannot easily be
validated by core. Therefore core has to trust the PD client to not
specify a PID of an existing process, which would happen to be killed
once the PD session gets destructed. This problem is documented by
issue #318. Second, there is no way for a Genode process to detect the
failure of its any grandchildren. The immediate parent of a faulting
process could use the SIGCHLD-and-waitpid mechanism to observe its
children but this mechanism does not work transitively.
By performing the process creation exclusively within core, all Genode
processes become immediate child processes of core. Hence, core can
respond to failures of any of those processes and reflect such
conditions via core's session interfaces. Furthermore, the PID
associated to a PD session is locally known within core and cannot be
forged anymore. In fact, there is actually no need at all to make
processes aware of any PIDs of other processes.
Please note that this patch breaks the 'chroot' mechanism that comes in
the form of the 'os/src/app/chroot' program. Because all processes are
forked from core, a chroot'ed process could sneak outside its chroot
environment by just creating a new Genode process. To address this
issue, the chroot mechanism must be added to core.
