PROTECT(1)              FreeBSD General Commands Manual             PROTECT(1)

NAME
     protect - protect processes from being killed when swap space is
     exhausted

SYNOPSIS
     protect [-i] command
     protect [-cdi] -g pgrp | -p pid

DESCRIPTION
     The protect command is used to mark processes as protected.  The kernel
     does not kill protected processes when swap space is exhausted.  Note
     that this protected state is not inherited by child processes by default.

     The options are:

     -c          Remove protection from the specified processes.

     -d          Apply the operation to all current children of the specified
                 processes.

     -i          Apply the operation to all future children of the specified
                 processes.

     -g pgrp     Apply the operation to all processes in the specified process
                 group.

     -p pid      Apply the operation to the specified process.

     command     Execute command as a protected process.

     Note that only one of the -p or -g flags may be specified when adjusting
     the state of existing processes.

EXIT STATUS
     The protect utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES
     Mark the Xorg server as protected:

           pgrep Xorg | xargs protect -p

     Protect all ssh sessions and their child processes:

           pgrep sshd | xargs protect -dip

     Remove protection from all current and future processes:

           protect -cdi -p 1

SEE ALSO
     procctl(2)

BUGS
     If you protect a runaway process that allocates all memory the system
     will deadlock.

FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6       September 19, 2013       FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6