How signal-safe is our malloc()?

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

At work, we have a program that (because of its DOS heritage) does a
lot of work in signal handlers.

When I first ported it from DOS to NetBSD, I converted interrupt
handlers into signal handlers.  Then it crashed occasionally.  Digging
into the crashes, it turned out that it was an Xlib call getting
interrupted by a signal, with the handler making another Xlib call and
colliding over some Xlib-internal data structures.

So I opened a second X connection and arranged for the main line to use
one of them and the "interrupt" (signal-handling) line to use the
other.  That stabilized it.

Now, for various reasons, they are trying to move it to Linux.  They're
seeing crashes that look like

	main line ->
	Xlib (main-line connection) ->
	malloc-family call ->
	signal handler ->
	Xlib (signal-handler connection) ->
	malloc-family call ->
	boom

The malloc family in use there is clearly not signal-safe.

This then makes me wonder why we didn't see the same on NetBSD.
signal(7) says our malloc isn't signal-safe either, but I'm wondering
whether it actually is signal-safe in 9.1 and signal safety just isn't
promised, or perhaps it's not signal-safe but the window of risk is
much smaller, or...what?

Any thoughts?

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