Re: [HACKERS] BeOS port

On Fri, Jun 18, 1999 at 10:35:18AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <maillist(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> >> Regarding the old code (6.3.2), there have been a lot of change in
> >> DoBackend/DoExec. I really need some expert advice on what to do.
>
> > I recommend you get anonymous cvs access(see cvs faq on web site) do a
> > log to show changes to postgres.c and postmaster.c, and you will find
> > the exec was removed in one or two big patches. Then do a cvs diff and
> > see the changes made, and try and merge them into the current code with
> > ifdef's.
>
> He's right though: there have been subsequent changes that depend on
> not doing an exec(). Offhand I only recall MyCancelKey --- that is set
> in the postmaster process just before fork(), and the backend simply
> assumes that it's got the right value.
>
> The straightforward solution (invent another backend command line switch
> to pass the cancel key) would not be a very good idea, since that would
> expose the cancel key to prying eyes.
>
> If BeOS does not have the ability to support fork without exec, does it
> have some other way of achieving the same result? Threads maybe?
> (But Postgres is hardly the only common daemon that uses fork without
> exec; sendmail comes to mind, for example. So it seems like the real
> answer is to beat up the BeOS folks about fixing their inadequate Unix
> support...)

I heard that! I work in Be's QA department. In fact, our bug
database got transferred to a Postgres/PHP/Apache system a few months
ago, running on Linux. Although I'm pretty much of the mind that BeOS
isn't a server OS, it would be interesting to see BeOS running postgres
as a server.
If you can tell me specifically what the problem is, I can pass
it along to the Kernel team.