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I understand that there is a default signal handler, that is a function for each signal , such as SIGKILL etc. In which file it is written? I tried looking at signal.h, but could not find it there.

I am expecting each signal handler is having at least one function (handler).

Kindly help me locate this file

user3891236
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1 Answers1

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There is no "file" like you want to see, unless you want to read kernel code.

This is a little oversimplified. See the chapter in Rago & Stevens on Signals in 'Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment' for a lot more information.

There are two parts to 'default signal handling'. These are built into the kernel. When the scheduler notices that there is a pending signal for a process, it gives the process the cpu if necessary (a context switch). Next the signal is delivered to the process. The process has a signal mask which allows it to ignore a lot of signals if the mask is deliberately set, two signals SIGKILL and SIGSTOP cannot be ignored or blocked. So the process now has a signal. If there is no handler set the kernel takes the default action for the signal.

There is a list of default actions for signals. SIGSEGV, for instance, terminates the process after it has dumped core. Michael Kerrisk has an explanation of the default actions. This is what I think you want.

http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/signal.7.html

The kernel has code to handle all of these signal's default responses for the process.

If the kernel gets a signal for "itself" (depending on what flavor of UNIX we are talking about) the kernel panics, writes a crash dump, and leaves you with headache. - which is not what you want.

jim mcnamara
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