NAME

       backfire - send a signal from driver to user

DESCRIPTION

       The  backfire driver reads a numerical string that is sent to the /dev/backfire device and
       sends the corresponding signal to the calling user  program.  Reading  from  /dev/backfire
       returns the time of the day when the most recent sent request was serviced or 0, if a sent
       request was not yet received. The time of the day is displayed in seconds since 1970-01-01
       00:00:00 UTC followed by the fraction of the second in microseconds separated by a comma.

PURPOSE

       The  backfire  driver is normally used in combination with the program sendme to benchmark
       the performance of the kernel's signal sending capabilities.

EXAMPLES

       head -1 /dev/backfire
       0,0
       trap "echo Got signal 7" 7
       echo 7 >/dev/backfire
       Got signal 7
       head -1 /dev/backfire
       1234567890,123456

AUTHORS

       Carsten Emde <C.Emde@osadl.org>

SEE ALSO

       sendme(8)

                                               0.1                                    backfire(4)