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)