api: YAML JSON TOON Database
version: 1.0.0
format: json
dataset:
  slug: process-management
  title: Process Management
  description: Core concepts of process and thread management.
  summary: "The vocabulary of process and thread management: processes, threads, control blocks, context switches, fork and exec, and the zombie and orphan states, plus process states, inter-process communication primitives and daemons."
  use_when[2]: You need the precise meaning of a process term for debugging or teaching.,"You are choosing between threads, processes and IPC mechanisms."
  caveats[2]: "Linux, Windows and macOS implement these ideas differently; fork and exec are the Unix model, while Windows creates processes with a single call.","Zombie processes are already dead; they cannot be killed, only reaped by their parent."
  related[3]: cpu-scheduling-algorithms,deadlock-handling,process-management-commands
  category: Operating Systems
  category_slug: operating-systems
  tags: "os,process,thread,scheduler"
  view_count: 0
  entry_count: 16
  fields[2]{section,field,type,example}:
    data,term,string,Process
    data,description,string,An instance of a program in execution with its …
data[16]{term,description}:
  Process,An instance of a program in execution with its own address space.
  Thread,A single flow of control within a process sharing its resources.
  Process Control Block,"Data structure storing process state, registers, and scheduling info."
  Context Switch,Saving and restoring CPU state when switching between processes.
  Fork,System call creating a child process as a copy of the parent.
  Exec,System call replacing the current process image with a new program.
  Zombie Process,A terminated process whose exit status has not been collected.
  Orphan Process,A process whose parent has terminated before it.
  Process States,"The lifecycle states of a process: new, ready, running, waiting (blocked) and terminated."
  Inter-Process Communication,"Mechanisms for processes to exchange data, such as pipes, sockets, shared memory and message queues."
  Pipe,"A one-way byte channel between processes, the basis of shell command chains."
  Signal,"An asynchronous notification delivered to a process, such as SIGTERM to ask it to exit."
  Semaphore,A counter used to control access to a shared resource by multiple processes or threads.
  Mutex,"A lock that allows one thread at a time to hold it, used to protect critical sections."
  Daemon,"A long-running background process, usually started at boot and detached from a terminal."
  Scheduler,The kernel component that decides which ready process or thread runs next.