First of all, I am using NetBSD 1.3.3 and gcc 2.7.2.2+myc2

While inside one running program (call it A), I want to create another,
totally independent, process (call it B), such that process A could exit or
be killed and restarted without affecting B in any way.

One way I understand to do this is to have A call fork(). Then, the child
process, B, should call execv() to execute the desired program.

One complication is that process A has several listening sockets as well as
a couple other socket connections open at the time it wants to create B. I
understand that, upon fork(), process B inherits *copies* of all those open
descriptors, and so before proceeding with the execv() call, I should first
close() all those open descriptors in process B.

BUT, when I do it this way, all of process A's descriptors seem to get
closed too, and A can no longer communicate on its sockets. Bad.

On the other hand, if I do NOT close all the descriptors in B, then if A
exits and is restarted while B is still alive, then A generates BIND
FAILED--ADDRESS ALREADY IN USE errors when it tries to open its sockets.

 Other things I have tried:

- Using vfork() instead of fork(), but not closing any descriptors. Seems
to have the same BIND FAILED problem.

- Making B into a daemon by calling fork() twice, each time having the
parent exit. (This comes from  "Unix Network Programming, Vol 1" by W.
Richard Stevens.) Even after all this, B still seems to have a hold on A's
descriptors.

What am I missing here? Please help.

Thanks.