[ENG] Michael Kerrisk (): Once upon an API... / #LinuxPiter

Once upon an API... Back in 1997, a new system call, prctl(), was added to the Linux kernel. By now that API does many (arguably, too many) different things to a process. But to begin with, it provided just one feature: the ability to allow a child process to request that the kernel sends it a signal when its parent dies (in other words, the converse of the traditional UNIX SIGCHILD signal that is sent to a parent process when one of its children dies). At first, the PR_SET_PDEATHSIG feature seems quite si