A thread is a struct proc that shares three counted objects with others of
its group: the address space (struct mm: page tables, heap top, VMAs and a
lock for changing them), the descriptor table, and the signal dispositions.
clone() shares what its flags say and fork() copies.
- clone(): pthread_create's shape (VM, FILES, SIGHAND, THREAD, SETTLS,
PARENT_SETTID, CHILD_CLEARTID) and posix_spawn's (VM, VFORK, a stack).
- futex: WAIT, WAIT_BITSET with timeouts, WAKE, REQUEUE, CMP_REQUEUE, keyed
by the word's kernel address so shared pages meet. set_tid_address keeps
the word that exit zeroes and wakes, for pthread_join.
- exit ends a thread; exit_group, a fatal signal, or the leader exiting ends
them all. reapd frees exited threads; the leader is reaped by its parent
once the rest are gone. getpid is the group, gettid the thread.
- Stops and resumes reach every thread; other process signals the leader.
- exec kills the other threads and unshares the dispositions.
- No TLB shootdown, so pages unmapped from a shared address space are freed
only once every CPU has reloaded CR3 or is idle.
- procfs: /proc lists processes, task/ lists threads, comm, Threads:, Tgid.
- The console honours VMIN 0 / VTIME (btop's input drain hung on it).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01S1giNvrHTrPMPw7V6x1kQ4
f4d7f9100d