What is the definition of a fork in the Linux operating system?

In the Linux operating system, a fork refers to the process of creating a new process from an existing one. When a parent process invokes the fork system call, it creates a duplicate of itself, referred to as the child process. This child process has its own unique process ID and memory space, but it inherits certain attributes from the parent, such as file descriptors and environment variables. The parent and child processes can run concurrently, allowing for multitasking within the system. This mechanism is fundamental to process management in Unix-like operating systems, enabling the execution of multiple tasks simultaneously.

The other choices do not accurately describe the concept of a fork. A daemon managing scheduled tasks pertains to job scheduling and is unrelated to process creation. The parent directory name of a file path is a directory structure concept in the filesystem and does not involve process mechanisms. Macros for manipulating CPU sets are more related to process scheduling and resource management at the CPU level, rather than the process creation aspect represented by the fork system call.