Forkbombs
About
These scripts are published for research purposes only. A forkbomb is a localized denial of service (DNS) attack. A program opens copies of itself, which open copies of themselves, which open copies of themselves, and so on until system resources are exhausted. A forkbomb is not a virus, as it doesn't spread to other computers (though a virus may incorporate a forkbomb as part of its payload).
Example
#include <unistd.h>;
int main(void) {
for(;;)
fork();
return 0;
}
Safety
The forkbombs are provided as source code, a safe medium. They are only executed upon user request, and a reboot kills them.
Procedures
- Save and close important documents.
- Download the forkbomb scripts.
- Select a script and execute it.
- The computer will begin to slow down and may become unresponsive.
- Restart the computer.
- Normal operation resumes.
Erlang, Light as a Feather
Erlang is well-known for its concurrent capabilities, fault tolerance, and incredibly lightweight processes. The bomb listed above spawns 134217727 of them. Here's a screenshot of the Activity Monitor during its run:
A CPU running at 128.6% capacity seems unlikely. Even more surprising is that while bomb.erl ran, it did not visibly slow the rest of the operating system. Erlang processes really are lightweight!