Robert L Parks

US Patent:

8239709, Aug 7, 2012

Filed:

Aug 12, 2009

Appl. No.:

12/540254

Inventors:

Erwin Hom - Foster City CA, US
Alex Chen - Saratoga CA, US
Robert Parks - Castro Valley CA, US
Jonathan Thatcher - Mountain View CA, US

Assignee:

Apple Inc. - Cupertino CA

International Classification:

G06F 11/00

US Classification:

714 381

Abstract:

Methods, program products, and systems for monitoring extrinsic processes are described. A monitoring process can monitor one or more target processes. The target processes can be extrinsic, e. g. , not spawned by the monitoring process. The monitoring process reads a process registry to identify which processes among multiple processes to monitor. The monitoring process can send status requests to the identified target processes periodically to check whether the target processes are healthy. If a target process is terminated, the monitoring process determines whether the termination is normal (e. g. , by a user), or abnormal (e. g. , the target process crashed). The monitoring process can restart the abnormally terminated or hung target process.