PID namespaces isolate the process ID number space, meaning that processes in different PID namespaces can have the same PID. PID namespaces allow containers to provide functionality such as suspending/resuming the set of processes in the container and migrating the container to a new host while the processes inside the container maintain the same PIDs.
PIDs in a new PID namespace start at 1, somewhat like a standalone system, and calls to fork(2), vfork(2), or clone(2) will produce processes with PIDs that are unique within the namespace.
Use of PID namespaces requires a kernel that is configured with the CONFIG_PID_NS option.
If the "init" process of a PID namespace terminates, the kernel terminates all of the processes in the namespace via a SIGKILL signal. This behavior reflects the fact that the "init" process is essential for the correct operation of a PID namespace. In this case, a subsequent fork(2) into this PID namespace will fail with the error ENOMEM; it is not possible to create a new processes in a PID namespace whose "init" process has terminated. Such scenarios can occur when, for example, a process uses an open file descriptor for a /proc/[pid]/ns/pid file corresponding to a process that was in a namespace to setns(2) into that namespace after the "init" process has terminated. Another possible scenario can occur after a call to unshare(2): if the first child subsequently created by a fork(2) terminates, then subsequent calls to fork(2) will fail with ENOMEM.
Only signals for which the "init" process has established a signal handler can be sent to the "init" process by other members of the PID namespace. This restriction applies even to privileged processes, and prevents other members of the PID namespace from accidentally killing the "init" process.
Likewise, a process in an ancestor namespace can---subject to the usual permission checks described in kill(2)---send signals to the "init" process of a child PID namespace only if the "init" process has established a handler for that signal. (Within the handler, the siginfo_t si_pid field described in sigaction(2) will be zero.) SIGKILL or SIGSTOP are treated exceptionally: these signals are forcibly delivered when sent from an ancestor PID namespace. Neither of these signals can be caught by the "init" process, and so will result in the usual actions associated with those signals (respectively, terminating and stopping the process).
Starting with Linux 3.4, the reboot(2) system call causes a signal to be sent to the namespace "init" process. See reboot(2) for more details.
A process is visible to other processes in its PID namespace, and to the processes in each direct ancestor PID namespace going back to the root PID namespace. In this context, "visible" means that one process can be the target of operations by another process using system calls that specify a process ID. Conversely, the processes in a child PID namespace can't see processes in the parent and further removed ancestor namespaces. More succinctly: a process can see (e.g., send signals with kill(2), set nice values with setpriority(2), etc.) only processes contained in its own PID namespace and in descendants of that namespace.
A process has one process ID in each of the layers of the PID namespace hierarchy in which is visible, and walking back though each direct ancestor namespace through to the root PID namespace. System calls that operate on process IDs always operate using the process ID that is visible in the PID namespace of the caller. A call to getpid(2) always returns the PID associated with the namespace in which the process was created.
Some processes in a PID namespace may have parents that are outside of the namespace. For example, the parent of the initial process in the namespace (i.e., the init(1) process with PID 1) is necessarily in another namespace. Likewise, the direct children of a process that uses setns(2) to cause its children to join a PID namespace are in a different PID namespace from the caller of setns(2). Calls to getppid(2) for such processes return 0.
While processes may freely descend into child PID namespaces (e.g., using setns(2) with CLONE_NEWPID), they may not move in the other direction. That is to say, processes may not enter any ancestor namespaces (parent, grandparent, etc.). Changing PID namespaces is a one-way operation.
The NS_GET_PARENT ioctl(2) operation can be used to discover the parental relationship between PID namespaces; see namespaces(7).
To put things another way: a process's PID namespace membership is determined when the process is created and cannot be changed thereafter. Among other things, this means that the parental relationship between processes mirrors the parental relationship between PID namespaces: the parent of a process is either in the same namespace or resides in the immediate parent PID namespace.
To summarize: there is a technical requirement for each of CLONE_THREAD, CLONE_SIGHAND, and CLONE_VM to share a PID namespace. (Note furthermore that in clone(2) requires CLONE_VM to be specified if CLONE_THREAD or CLONE_SIGHAND is specified.) Thus, call sequences such as the following will fail (with the error EINVAL):
unshare(CLONE_NEWPID);
clone(..., CLONE_VM, ...); /* Fails */
setns(fd, CLONE_NEWPID);
clone(..., CLONE_VM, ...); /* Fails */
clone(..., CLONE_VM, ...);
setns(fd, CLONE_NEWPID); /* Fails */
clone(..., CLONE_VM, ...);
unshare(CLONE_NEWPID); /* Fails */
After creating a new PID namespace, it is useful for the child to change its root directory and mount a new procfs instance at /proc so that tools such as ps(1) work correctly. If a new mount namespace is simultaneously created by including CLONE_NEWNS in the flags argument of clone(2) or unshare(2), then it isn't necessary to change the root directory: a new procfs instance can be mounted directly over /proc.
From a shell, the command to mount /proc is:
$ mount -t proc proc /proc
Calling readlink(2) on the path /proc/self yields the process ID of the caller in the PID namespace of the procfs mount (i.e., the PID namespace of the process that mounted the procfs). This can be useful for introspection purposes, when a process wants to discover its PID in other namespaces.