Set a guardian process for the child processes in case parent dies

There is a function in QNX procmgr_guardian which sets a child process as the guardian of the other child process in case of开发者_C百科 the parent's death. Is there such functionality in Linux too ? How do I implement it in Linux? Any pointers are appreciated.

There is no direct method for monitoring a process that is not your own child. However, there is a hack you can use: Create a FIFO using pipe(); ensure that the process to be monitored holds the write end of the pipe (and that it is closed in all other processes). If the process dies, an EOF condition will be signalled in the read end of the pipe (ie, select will indicate a readable condition).

If you want the process to be reparented when its immediate parent dies, you may be able to achieve this with PID namespaces. By arranging for the 'guardian' process to be PID 1 in the PID namespace, it will inherit all orphaned processes in that namespace.