From owner-freebsd-standards@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 9 23:04:51 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-standards@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 65AC41065753 for ; Mon, 9 May 2011 23:04:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from das@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from zim.MIT.EDU (ZIM.MIT.EDU [18.95.3.101]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E86738FC31 for ; Mon, 9 May 2011 23:04:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from zim.MIT.EDU (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zim.MIT.EDU (8.14.4/8.14.2) with ESMTP id p49MT25X018446; Mon, 9 May 2011 18:29:02 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from das@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: (from das@localhost) by zim.MIT.EDU (8.14.4/8.14.2/Submit) id p49MT1Wr018445; Mon, 9 May 2011 18:29:01 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from das@FreeBSD.ORG) Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 18:29:01 -0400 From: David Schultz To: Chris Rees Message-ID: <20110509222901.GA18428@zim.MIT.EDU> Mail-Followup-To: Chris Rees , Eitan Adler , Maxim Konovalov , Oliver Fromme , FreeBSD Standards References: <201103221457.p2MEvJub035858@lurza.secnetix.de> <20110322181604.GA47588@zim.MIT.EDU> <20110325033736.GA64512@zim.MIT.EDU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: Cc: FreeBSD Standards , Maxim Konovalov , Oliver Fromme Subject: Re: dd dies on SIGUSR1 X-BeenThere: freebsd-standards@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Standards compliance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 09 May 2011 23:04:51 -0000 On Mon, May 09, 2011, Chris Rees wrote: > On 25 March 2011 03:37, David Schultz wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 23, 2011, Eitan Adler wrote: > >> > We are talking about a design decision taken decades ago, which quite > >> > possibly was a mistake. > >> > >> Historical reasons are not be discounted, but in this case because the > >> behavior is already non-portable, and already not be relied upon, so > >> there is no reason that changing the default is harmful. > >> > >> > Again, how many people rely on USR1 to terminate a process? > >> > >> Hopefully none. Even if there are people who do rely on such behavior > >> that reliance could be said to be a mistake or otherwise broken. > > > > Please see my previous message.  The historical behavior of SIGUSR1 > > terminating a process by default is standard, even on Linux. > > > > I believe one of the original uses of the signal was to allow > > daemons and their children to signal each other.  In this use > > case, if the notification can't be delivered because the recipient > > is unprepared to accept it, termination is appropriate for a > > fail-fast design. > > Since the consensus seems to be for leaving as-is, perhaps someone > could please close bin/155034? > > You can state that I've abandoned it! Looking into the solution originally proposed is still on my todo list... In researching it further, I noticed that even Linux doesn't support this convention consistently: Most utilities die on receipt of SIGUSR1, or fail to do anything useful. dd appears to be the sole exception.