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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.bugs.v7,net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: unexpected alarms
Message-ID: <4889@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Jan-85 12:49:24 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4889
Posted: Tue Jan  8 12:49:24 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 12:49:24 EST
References: <4861@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 14

Blush.  Several people have pointed out that the stuff on page 229 of
Kernighan&Pike does *not* rely on alarms persisting across exec.  My
mistake; I was originally looking around for any sign that the behavior
might be useful, and I looked at the K&P discussion but not at the
code.

Does anybody know of any case where the persistence of alarms across
exec is genuinely useful?  I personally think that just cancelling
them altogether is the right thing to do.  My kernel mod cancels them
only for setuid/gid programs simply because this was the minimum change
in behavior needed to make things safe.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry