PREFORK(1)

NAME
prefork - utility to prefork inetd-style wait services

SYNOPSIS
prefork [-N max_kids] [-n min_kids] [-r rate_limit] [-s sample_time] daemon [args ...]

DESCRIPTION
prefork is a utility to prefork inetd-style wait services which itself runs as an inetd-style wait service. prefork expects to be passed file descriptor zero (0) as a listening socket on which accept(2) can be called and will spawn children, passing them file descriptor zero (0) under the expectation that these children will service the incoming connexions. The children should then service connexions by calling accept(2) on the socket.

The options are as follows:

-N max_kids
    specifies the maximum number of children that prefork will allow to concurrently exist. This value defaults to 10.

-n min_kids
    specifies the minimum number of children that prefork will allow to concurrently exist. This value defaults to 0.

-r rate_limit
    specifies the minimum time between spawning children in addition to those specified by -n min_kids. The argument is an integral value interpreted as a number of microseconds. This value defaults to 100,000.

-s sample_time
    specifies the minimum number of microseconds after a pending connexion is detected by select(2) before prefork will test again for pending connexions. prefork requires two selects in a row to be successful before it spawns a new daemon. This value defaults to 10,000.

EXIT STATUS
prefork exits 0 on success and >0 if an error occurred.

SEE ALSO
inetd(8).