executable ELF is rm-ed from disk, but still running RAM..

[Mulyadi Santosa]

Hi all..


On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 08:25, Pei Lin <telent997 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2011/5/30 Mulyadi Santosa <mulyadi.santosa at gmail.com>:
>> Hi all..
>>
>> As the subject says, I was thinking about that issue.
>>
>> I know that rm-ing a file doesn't delete the data block from the
>> backing device, thus the executable could still survive and running.
>>
>> But logically, we usually expect that once a file is rm-ed, it should
>> also "stop", right? What does POSIX say about this case anyway? Anyone
>> could kindly give his/her opinion?
> In my view, i don't expect that rm one file should also stop the
> related process. If that, in one system, do the thing "rm sysfile"
> will stop OS running? In my logic, i just think run the executable is
> the user's choice before "rm it", if the user want to delete file,
> also who want to stop the process related this file should kill the
> process themselves. I consider that if the users delete one file
> uncarefully, should give the chance to recover it and not block
> current running task.


Thanks for sharing your thoughts so far. This came to my mind when I
did a project about 2 years ago. At that time, I also came to very
much same conclusion: if you want to make sure new binary is executed,
sigkill/sigterm the old ones first, remove them and run the new one.
Seems trivial, but initially this tiny little detail missed from my
mind.


-- 
regards,

Mulyadi Santosa
Freelance Linux trainer and consultant

blog: the-hydra.blogspot.com
training: mulyaditraining.blogspot.com