debian man page for backfire

backfire(4)							      Driver							       backfire(4)

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)