Calling "clone()" on linux but it seems to malfunction - linux

Question

A simple test program, I expect it will "clone" to fork a child process, and each process can execute till its end
#include<stdio.h>
#include<sched.h>
#include<unistd.h>
#include<sys/types.h>
#include<errno.h>
int f(void*arg)
{
pid_t pid=getpid();
printf("child pid=%d\n",pid);
}
char buf[1024];
int main()
{
printf("before clone\n");
int pid=clone(f,buf,CLONE_VM|CLONE_VFORK,NULL);
if(pid==-1){
printf("%d\n",errno);
return 1;
}
waitpid(pid,NULL,0);
printf("after clone\n");
printf("father pid=%d\n",getpid());
return 0;
}
Ru it:
$g++ testClone.cpp && ./a.out
before clone
It didn't print what I expected. Seems after "clone" the program is in unknown state and then quit. I tried gdb and it prints:
Breakpoint 1, main () at testClone.cpp:15
(gdb) n-
before clone
(gdb) n-
waiting for new child: No child processes.
(gdb) n-
Single stepping until exit from function clone#plt,-
which has no line number information.
If I remove the line of "waitpid", then gdb prints another kind of weird information.
(gdb) n-
before clone
(gdb) n-
Detaching after fork from child process 26709.
warning: Unexpected waitpid result 000000 when waiting for vfork-done
Cannot remove breakpoints because program is no longer writable.
It might be running in another process.
Further execution is probably impossible.
0x00007fb18a446bf1 in clone () from /lib64/libc.so.6
ptrace: No such process.
Where did I get wrong in my program?

Answer 1

You should never call clone in a user-level program -- there are way too many restrictions on what you are allowed to do in the cloned process.
In particular, calling any libc function (such as printf) is a complete no-no (because libc doesn't know that your clone exists, and have not performed any setup for it).
As K. A. Buhr points out, you also pass too small a stack, and the wrong end of it. Your stack is also not properly aligned.
In short, even though K. A. Buhr's modification appears to work, it doesn't really.
TL;DR: clone, just don't use it.

Answer 2

The second argument to clone is a pointer to the child's stack. As per the manual page for clone(2):
Stacks grow downward on all processors that run Linux (except the HP PA processors), so child_stack usually points to the topmost address of the memory space set up for the child stack.
Also, 1024 bytes is a paltry amount for a stack. The following modified version of your program appears to run correctly:
// #define _GNU_SOURCE // may be needed if compiled as C instead of C++
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sched.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <errno.h>
int f(void*arg)
{
pid_t pid=getpid();
printf("child pid=%d\n",pid);
return 0;
}
char buf[1024*1024]; // *** allocate more stack ***
int main()
{
printf("before clone\n");
int pid=clone(f,buf+sizeof(buf),CLONE_VM|CLONE_VFORK,NULL);
// *** in previous line: pointer is to *end* of stack ***
if(pid==-1){
printf("%d\n",errno);
return 1;
}
waitpid(pid,NULL,0);
printf("after clone\n");
printf("father pid=%d\n",getpid());
return 0;
}
Also, #Employed Russian is right -- you probably shouldn't use clone except if you're trying to have some fun. Either fork or vfork are more sensible interfaces to clone whenever they meet your needs.