Description
Objectives
Learn how to create and terminate processes.
Learn about process hierarchy.
Learning to use system calls fork(), exec(), wait(), getpid(), getppid()
Practice using command-line arguments and recursion.
Description
You are being asked to write a program that will recursively create a process hierarchy tree that is H levels deep, print
out the process tree information as the tree is being created, and then systematically terminate all the processes in the
tree. Here are the detailed requirements:
1. Your program should accept two command-line arguments H and C that describe the structure of the process tree.
The argument H is the height of the tree and C is the number of child processes belonging to each internal node of
the process tree.
2. Upon starting up, your program should first print the following information:
(pid): Process starting
(pid): Parent’s id = (ppid)
(pid): Height in the tree = (value_of_H_from_command_line_argument)
(pid): Creating (value_of_C_from_command_line) children at height (H-1)
In the above output, you should replace pid by the process id of the current process and ppid by the process id of
the parent process.
3. Next, if the height H is greater than 1, your program should create C child processes using fork(), and wait for all
of the children to complete using the wait() system call.
4. Once all the child processes (if any) have terminated, your program should quit by printing.
(pid): Terminating at height (H).
Parent must not quit before ALL child processes terminate.
Also, parent must call wait() ONLY AFTER CREATING ALL CHILDREN. (Think why?)
5. What should each child process do while the parent waits? Recursion! Each of the child processes should use the
exec() system call to run exactly the same program image as the parent. The only difference should be that the
command-line argument received by the child proceses from the parent (via the exec() system call) should be H-1
for height and C for number of children.
(NOTE: Recursion in this step can also be done without using exec(), via straightforward function calls. But you
are REQUIRED to use exec() to start the child program image and pass arguments to it. Learning about exec() is
one of the goals of this assignment.)
6. Make the output more readable by neatly indenting the print statements above to match height of each process in
the process heirarchy. (Do this at the end. Its worth only 5 points, but makes the TA’s life easier while grading).
Grading Guidelines
This is how we will grade your assignment during the demo. So please prioritize your work accordingly.
20 – Correctly creating a hierarchy of processes with arbitrary H and C using fork() and exec().
20 – Correctly terminating the hierarchy for arbitrary H and C using wait()/waitpid().
10 – Recursion is implemented using exec() (and NOT using usual function calls)
10 – Parent process wait()s for child processes ONLY after it creates ALL child processes.
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10 – Parent process does not terminate before ALL child processes terminate.
10 – Error Handling
Most important part here is to make sure that you check and handle the errors
returned by ALL systems calls used in your program. Also check for other common
error conditions in your program. But don’t go overboard with error checking.
We will NOT try to intentionally break your code with bad input that’s irrelevant
to the assignment’s goal.
5 – Indented formatting for output of processes at different heights in the hierarchy
5 – Makefile, Compilation without errors, README
Total points = 90
Hints
1. The entire program is likely very small, no more than a few tens of lines of code at most, if you think through it
carefully.
2. Use manpages to check the usage details of different system calls.
3. Do this assignment as a regular user, NOT as root, to avoid corrupting your system accidentally.
4. Use the command “kill -9 (pid)” to kill one process. Use “killall (program_name)” to kill all processes starting with
a certain name. Use “kill -9 -1” to kill all processes owned by the current user (do this ONLY as a normal user,
NEVER as root).
5. Remember to terminate *all* the processes you create. If implemented incorrectly, you can easily end up writing a
program that forks indefinitely. The system administrators won’t like it, especially on remote.cs, and they may
disable your account. Use machines in G-7/Q-22 labs, or your own personal computer
