.\" .\" Copyright 2000 Massachusetts Institute of Technology .\" .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and .\" its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby .\" granted, provided that both the above copyright notice and this .\" permission notice appear in all copies, that both the above .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all .\" supporting documentation, and that the name of M.I.T. not be used .\" in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the .\" software without specific, written prior permission. M.I.T. makes .\" no representations about the suitability of this software for any .\" purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied .\" warranty. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY M.I.T. ``AS IS''. M.I.T. DISCLAIMS .\" ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, .\" INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT .\" SHALL M.I.T. BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, .\" SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT .\" LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF .\" USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND .\" ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, .\" OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT .\" OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $FreeBSD$ .\" .Dd January 13, 2017 .Dt SHM_OPEN 2 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm shm_open , shm_unlink .Nd "shared memory object operations" .Sh LIBRARY .Lb libc .Sh SYNOPSIS .In sys/types.h .In sys/mman.h .In fcntl.h .Ft int .Fn shm_open "const char *path" "int flags" "mode_t mode" .Ft int .Fn shm_unlink "const char *path" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn shm_open system call opens (or optionally creates) a .Tn POSIX shared memory object named .Fa path . The .Fa flags argument contains a subset of the flags used by .Xr open 2 . An access mode of either .Dv O_RDONLY or .Dv O_RDWR must be included in .Fa flags . The optional flags .Dv O_CREAT , .Dv O_EXCL , and .Dv O_TRUNC may also be specified. .Pp If .Dv O_CREAT is specified, then a new shared memory object named .Fa path will be created if it does not exist. In this case, the shared memory object is created with mode .Fa mode subject to the process' umask value. If both the .Dv O_CREAT and .Dv O_EXCL flags are specified and a shared memory object named .Fa path already exists, then .Fn shm_open will fail with .Er EEXIST . .Pp Newly created objects start off with a size of zero. If an existing shared memory object is opened with .Dv O_RDWR and the .Dv O_TRUNC flag is specified, then the shared memory object will be truncated to a size of zero. The size of the object can be adjusted via .Xr ftruncate 2 and queried via .Xr fstat 2 . .Pp The new descriptor is set to close during .Xr execve 2 system calls; see .Xr close 2 and .Xr fcntl 2 . .Pp As a FreeBSD extension, the constant .Dv SHM_ANON may be used for the .Fa path argument to .Fn shm_open . In this case, an anonymous, unnamed shared memory object is created. Since the object has no name, it cannot be removed via a subsequent call to .Fn shm_unlink . Instead, the shared memory object will be garbage collected when the last reference to the shared memory object is removed. The shared memory object may be shared with other processes by sharing the file descriptor via .Xr fork 2 or .Xr sendmsg 2 . Attempting to open an anonymous shared memory object with .Dv O_RDONLY will fail with .Er EINVAL . All other flags are ignored. .Pp The .Fn shm_unlink system call removes a shared memory object named .Fa path . .Sh RETURN VALUES If successful, .Fn shm_open returns a non-negative integer, and .Fn shm_unlink returns zero. Both functions return -1 on failure, and set .Va errno to indicate the error. .Sh COMPATIBILITY The .Fa path argument does not necessarily represent a pathname (although it does in most other implementations). Two processes opening the same .Fa path are guaranteed to access the same shared memory object if and only if .Fa path begins with a slash .Pq Ql \&/ character. .Pp Only the .Dv O_RDONLY , .Dv O_RDWR , .Dv O_CREAT , .Dv O_EXCL , and .Dv O_TRUNC flags may be used in portable programs. .Pp .Tn POSIX specifications state that the result of using .Xr open 2 , .Xr read 2 , or .Xr write 2 on a shared memory object, or on the descriptor returned by .Fn shm_open , is undefined. However, the .Fx kernel implementation explicitly includes support for .Xr read 2 and .Xr write 2 . .Pp Neither shared memory objects nor their contents persist across reboots. .Pp Writes do not extend shared memory objects, so .Xr ftruncate 2 must be called before any data can be written. See .Sx EXAMPLES . .Sh EXAMPLES This example fails without the call to .Xr ftruncate 2 : .Bd -literal -compact uint8_t buffer[getpagesize()]; ssize_t len; int fd; fd = shm_open(SHM_ANON, O_RDWR | O_CREAT, 0600); if (fd < 0) err(EX_OSERR, "%s: shm_open", __func__); if (ftruncate(fd, getpagesize()) < 0) err(EX_IOERR, "%s: ftruncate", __func__); len = pwrite(fd, buffer, getpagesize(), 0); if (len < 0) err(EX_IOERR, "%s: pwrite", __func__); if (len != getpagesize()) errx(EX_IOERR, "%s: pwrite length mismatch", __func__); .Ed .Sh ERRORS .Fn shm_open fails with these error codes for these conditions: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EINVAL A flag other than .Dv O_RDONLY , .Dv O_RDWR , .Dv O_CREAT , .Dv O_EXCL , or .Dv O_TRUNC was included in .Fa flags . .It Bq Er EMFILE The process has already reached its limit for open file descriptors. .It Bq Er ENFILE The system file table is full. .It Bq Er EINVAL .Dv O_RDONLY was specified while creating an anonymous shared memory object via .Dv SHM_ANON . .It Bq Er EFAULT The .Fa path argument points outside the process' allocated address space. .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG The entire pathname exceeded 1023 characters. .It Bq Er EINVAL The .Fa path does not begin with a slash .Pq Ql \&/ character. .It Bq Er ENOENT .Dv O_CREAT is specified and the named shared memory object does not exist. .It Bq Er EEXIST .Dv O_CREAT and .Dv O_EXCL are specified and the named shared memory object does exist. .It Bq Er EACCES The required permissions (for reading or reading and writing) are denied. .El .Pp .Fn shm_unlink fails with these error codes for these conditions: .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EFAULT The .Fa path argument points outside the process' allocated address space. .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG The entire pathname exceeded 1023 characters. .It Bq Er ENOENT The named shared memory object does not exist. .It Bq Er EACCES The required permissions are denied. .Fn shm_unlink requires write permission to the shared memory object. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr close 2 , .Xr fstat 2 , .Xr ftruncate 2 , .Xr mmap 2 , .Xr munmap 2 .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn shm_open and .Fn shm_unlink functions are believed to conform to .St -p1003.1b-93 . .Sh HISTORY The .Fn shm_open and .Fn shm_unlink functions first appeared in .Fx 4.3 . The functions were reimplemented as system calls using shared memory objects directly rather than files in .Fx 8.0 . .Sh AUTHORS .An Garrett A. Wollman Aq Mt wollman@FreeBSD.org (C library support and this manual page) .Pp .An Matthew Dillon Aq Mt dillon@FreeBSD.org .Pq Dv MAP_NOSYNC