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FCNTL(2) - phpMan
FCNTL(2) Linux Programmer's Manual FCNTL(2)
NAME
fcntl - manipulate file descriptor
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
int fcntl(int fd, int cmd, ... /* arg */ );
DESCRIPTION
fcntl() performs one of the operations described below on the open file descriptor fd.
The operation is determined by cmd.
fcntl() can take an optional third argument. Whether or not this argument is required is
determined by cmd. The required argument type is indicated in parentheses after each cmd
name (in most cases, the required type is int, and we identify the argument using the name
arg), or void is specified if the argument is not required.
Certain of the operations below are supported only since a particular Linux kernel ver‐
sion. The preferred method of checking whether the host kernel supports a particular
operation is to invoke fcntl() with the desired cmd value and then test whether the call
failed with EINVAL, indicating that the kernel does not recognize this value.
Duplicating a file descriptor
F_DUPFD (int)
Find the lowest numbered available file descriptor greater than or equal to arg and
make it be a copy of fd. This is different from dup2(2), which uses exactly the
descriptor specified.
On success, the new descriptor is returned.
See dup(2) for further details.
F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC (int; since Linux 2.6.24)
As for F_DUPFD, but additionally set the close-on-exec flag for the duplicate
descriptor. Specifying this flag permits a program to avoid an additional fcntl()
F_SETFD operation to set the FD_CLOEXEC flag. For an explanation of why this flag
is useful, see the description of O_CLOEXEC in open(2).
File descriptor flags
The following commands manipulate the flags associated with a file descriptor. Currently,
only one such flag is defined: FD_CLOEXEC, the close-on-exec flag. If the FD_CLOEXEC bit
is 0, the file descriptor will remain open across an execve(2), otherwise it will be
closed.
F_GETFD (void)
Read the file descriptor flags; arg is ignored.
F_SETFD (int)
Set the file descriptor flags to the value specified by arg.
In multithreaded programs, using fcntl() F_SETFD to set the close-on-exec flag at the same
time as another thread performs a fork(2) plus execve(2) is vulnerable to a race condition
that may unintentionally leak the file descriptor to the program executed in the child
process. See the discussion of the O_CLOEXEC flag in open(2) for details and a remedy to
the problem.
File status flags
Each open file description has certain associated status flags, initialized by open(2) and
possibly modified by fcntl(). Duplicated file descriptors (made with dup(2),
fcntl(F_DUPFD), fork(2), etc.) refer to the same open file description, and thus share the
same file status flags.
The file status flags and their semantics are described in open(2).
F_GETFL (void)
Get the file access mode and the file status flags; arg is ignored.
F_SETFL (int)
Set the file status flags to the value specified by arg. File access mode
(O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, O_RDWR) and file creation flags (i.e., O_CREAT, O_EXCL,
O_NOCTTY, O_TRUNC) in arg are ignored. On Linux this command can change only the
O_APPEND, O_ASYNC, O_DIRECT, O_NOATIME, and O_NONBLOCK flags. It is not possible
to change the O_DSYNC and O_SYNC flags; see BUGS, below.
Advisory record locking
Linux implements traditional ("process-associated") UNIX record locks, as standardized by
POSIX. For a Linux-specific alternative with better semantics, see the discussion of open
file description locks below.
F_SETLK, F_SETLKW, and F_GETLK are used to acquire, release, and test for the existence of
record locks (also known as byte-range, file-segment, or file-region locks). The third
argument, lock, is a pointer to a structure that has at least the following fields (in
unspecified order).
struct flock {
...
short l_type; /* Type of lock: F_RDLCK,
F_WRLCK, F_UNLCK */
short l_whence; /* How to interpret l_start:
SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, SEEK_END */
off_t l_start; /* Starting offset for lock */
off_t l_len; /* Number of bytes to lock */
pid_t l_pid; /* PID of process blocking our lock
(set by F_GETLK and F_OFD_GETLK) */
...
};
The l_whence, l_start, and l_len fields of this structure specify the range of bytes we
wish to lock. Bytes past the end of the file may be locked, but not bytes before the
start of the file.
l_start is the starting offset for the lock, and is interpreted relative to either: the
start of the file (if l_whence is SEEK_SET); the current file offset (if l_whence is
SEEK_CUR); or the end of the file (if l_whence is SEEK_END). In the final two cases,
l_start can be a negative number provided the offset does not lie before the start of the
file.
l_len specifies the number of bytes to be locked. If l_len is positive, then the range to
be locked covers bytes l_start up to and including l_start+l_len-1. Specifying 0 for
l_len has the special meaning: lock all bytes starting at the location specified by
l_whence and l_start through to the end of file, no matter how large the file grows.
POSIX.1-2001 allows (but does not require) an implementation to support a negative l_len
value; if l_len is negative, the interval described by lock covers bytes l_start+l_len up
to and including l_start-1. This is supported by Linux since kernel versions 2.4.21 and
2.5.49.
The l_type field can be used to place a read (F_RDLCK) or a write (F_WRLCK) lock on a
file. Any number of processes may hold a read lock (shared lock) on a file region, but
only one process may hold a write lock (exclusive lock). An exclusive lock excludes all
other locks, both shared and exclusive. A single process can hold only one type of lock
on a file region; if a new lock is applied to an already-locked region, then the existing
lock is converted to the new lock type. (Such conversions may involve splitting, shrink‐
ing, or coalescing with an existing lock if the byte range specified by the new lock does
not precisely coincide with the range of the existing lock.)
F_SETLK (struct flock *)
Acquire a lock (when l_type is F_RDLCK or F_WRLCK) or release a lock (when l_type
is F_UNLCK) on the bytes specified by the l_whence, l_start, and l_len fields of
lock. If a conflicting lock is held by another process, this call returns -1 and
sets errno to EACCES or EAGAIN. (The error returned in this case differs across
implementations, so POSIX requires a portable application to check for both
errors.)
F_SETLKW (struct flock *)
As for F_SETLK, but if a conflicting lock is held on the file, then wait for that
lock to be released. If a signal is caught while waiting, then the call is inter‐
rupted and (after the signal handler has returned) returns immediately (with return
value -1 and errno set to EINTR; see signal(7)).
F_GETLK (struct flock *)
On input to this call, lock describes a lock we would like to place on the file.
If the lock could be placed, fcntl() does not actually place it, but returns
F_UNLCK in the l_type field of lock and leaves the other fields of the structure
unchanged.
If one or more incompatible locks would prevent this lock being placed, then
fcntl() returns details about one of those locks in the l_type, l_whence, l_start,
and l_len fields of lock. If the conflicting lock is a traditional (process-asso‐
ciated) record lock, then the l_pid field is set to the PID of the process holding
that lock. If the conflicting lock is an open file description lock, then l_pid is
set to -1. Note that the returned information may already be out of date by the
time the caller inspects it.
In order to place a read lock, fd must be open for reading. In order to place a write
lock, fd must be open for writing. To place both types of lock, open a file read-write.
When placing locks with F_SETLKW, the kernel detects deadlocks, whereby two or more pro‐
cesses have their lock requests mutually blocked by locks held by the other processes.
For example, suppose process A holds a write lock on byte 100 of a file, and process B
holds a write lock on byte 200. If each process then attempts to lock the byte already
locked by the other process using F_SETLKW, then, without deadlock detection, both pro‐
cesses would remain blocked indefinitely. When the kernel detects such deadlocks, it
causes one of the blocking lock requests to immediately fail with the error EDEADLK; an
application that encounters such an error should release some of its locks to allow other
applications to proceed before attempting regain the locks that it requires. Circular
deadlocks involving more than two processes are also detected. Note, however, that there
are limitations to the kernel's deadlock-detection algorithm; see BUGS.
As well as being removed by an explicit F_UNLCK, record locks are automatically released
when the process terminates.
Record locks are not inherited by a child created via fork(2), but are preserved across an
execve(2).
Because of the buffering performed by the stdio(3) library, the use of record locking with
routines in that package should be avoided; use read(2) and write(2) instead.
The record locks described above are associated with the process (unlike the open file
description locks described below). This has some unfortunate consequences:
* If a process closes any file descriptor referring to a file, then all of the process's
locks on that file are released, regardless of the file descriptor(s) on which the
locks were obtained. This is bad: it means that a process can lose its locks on a file
such as /etc/passwd or /etc/mtab when for some reason a library function decides to
open, read, and close the same file.
* The threads in a process share locks. In other words, a multithreaded program can't
use record locking to ensure that threads don't simultaneously access the same region
of a file.
Open file description locks solve both of these problems.
Open file description locks (non-POSIX)
Open file description locks are advisory byte-range locks whose operation is in most
respects identical to the traditional record locks described above. This lock type is
Linux-specific, and available since Linux 3.15. For an explanation of open file descrip‐
tions, see open(2).
The principal difference between the two lock types is that whereas traditional record
locks are associated with a process, open file description locks are associated with the
open file description on which they are acquired, much like locks acquired with flock(2).
Consequently (and unlike traditional advisory record locks), open file description locks
are inherited across fork(2) (and clone(2) with CLONE_FILES), and are only automatically
released on the last close of the open file description, instead of being released on any
close of the file.
Open file description locks always conflict with traditional record locks, even when they
are acquired by the same process on the same file descriptor.
Open file description locks placed via the same open file description (i.e., via the same
file descriptor, or via a duplicate of the file descriptor created by fork(2), dup(2),
fcntl(2) F_DUPFD, and so on) are always compatible: if a new lock is placed on an already
locked region, then the existing lock is converted to the new lock type. (Such conver‐
sions may result in splitting, shrinking, or coalescing with an existing lock as discussed
above.)
On the other hand, open file description locks may conflict with each other when they are
acquired via different open file descriptions. Thus, the threads in a multithreaded pro‐
gram can use open file description locks to synchronize access to a file region by having
each thread perform its own open(2) on the file and applying locks via the resulting file
descriptor.
As with traditional advisory locks, the third argument to fcntl(), lock, is a pointer to
an flock structure. By contrast with traditional record locks, the l_pid field of that
structure must be set to zero when using the commands described below.
The commands for working with open file description locks are analogous to those used with
traditional locks:
F_OFD_SETLK (struct flock *)
Acquire an open file description lock (when l_type is F_RDLCK or F_WRLCK) or
release an open file description lock (when l_type is F_UNLCK) on the bytes speci‐
fied by the l_whence, l_start, and l_len fields of lock. If a conflicting lock is
held by another process, this call returns -1 and sets errno to EAGAIN.
F_OFD_SETLKW (struct flock *)
As for F_OFD_SETLK, but if a conflicting lock is held on the file, then wait for
that lock to be released. If a signal is caught while waiting, then the call is
interrupted and (after the signal handler has returned) returns immediately (with
return value -1 and errno set to EINTR; see signal(7)).
F_OFD_GETLK (struct flock *)
On input to this call, lock describes an open file description lock we would like
to place on the file. If the lock could be placed, fcntl() does not actually place
it, but returns F_UNLCK in the l_type field of lock and leaves the other fields of
the structure unchanged. If one or more incompatible locks would prevent this lock
being placed, then details about one of these locks are returned via lock, as
described above for F_GETLK.
In the current implementation, no deadlock detection is performed for open file descrip‐
tion locks. (This contrasts with process-associated record locks, for which the kernel
does perform deadlock detection.)
Mandatory locking
Warning: the Linux implementation of mandatory locking is unreliable. See BUGS below.
By default, both traditional (process-associated) and open file description record locks
are advisory. Advisory locks are not enforced and are useful only between cooperating
processes.
Both lock types can also be mandatory. Mandatory locks are enforced for all processes.
If a process tries to perform an incompatible access (e.g., read(2) or write(2)) on a file
region that has an incompatible mandatory lock, then the result depends upon whether the
O_NONBLOCK flag is enabled for its open file description. If the O_NONBLOCK flag is not
enabled, then the system call is blocked until the lock is removed or converted to a mode
that is compatible with the access. If the O_NONBLOCK flag is enabled, then the system
call fails with the error EAGAIN.
To make use of mandatory locks, mandatory locking must be enabled both on the filesystem
that contains the file to be locked, and on the file itself. Mandatory locking is enabled
on a filesystem using the "-o mand" option to mount(8), or the MS_MANDLOCK flag for
mount(2). Mandatory locking is enabled on a file by disabling group execute permission on
the file and enabling the set-group-ID permission bit (see chmod(1) and chmod(2)).
Mandatory locking is not specified by POSIX. Some other systems also support mandatory
locking, although the details of how to enable it vary across systems.
Managing signals
F_GETOWN, F_SETOWN, F_GETOWN_EX, F_SETOWN_EX, F_GETSIG and F_SETSIG are used to manage I/O
availability signals:
F_GETOWN (void)
Return (as the function result) the process ID or process group currently receiving
SIGIO and SIGURG signals for events on file descriptor fd. Process IDs are
returned as positive values; process group IDs are returned as negative values (but
see BUGS below). arg is ignored.
F_SETOWN (int)
Set the process ID or process group ID that will receive SIGIO and SIGURG signals
for events on file descriptor fd to the ID given in arg. A process ID is specified
as a positive value; a process group ID is specified as a negative value. Most
commonly, the calling process specifies itself as the owner (that is, arg is speci‐
fied as getpid(2)).
If you set the O_ASYNC status flag on a file descriptor by using the F_SETFL com‐
mand of fcntl(), a SIGIO signal is sent whenever input or output becomes possible
on that file descriptor. F_SETSIG can be used to obtain delivery of a signal other
than SIGIO. If this permission check fails, then the signal is silently discarded.
Sending a signal to the owner process (group) specified by F_SETOWN is subject to
the same permissions checks as are described for kill(2), where the sending process
is the one that employs F_SETOWN (but see BUGS below).
If the file descriptor fd refers to a socket, F_SETOWN also selects the recipient
of SIGURG signals that are delivered when out-of-band data arrives on that socket.
(SIGURG is sent in any situation where select(2) would report the socket as having
an "exceptional condition".)
The following was true in 2.6.x kernels up to and including kernel 2.6.11:
If a nonzero value is given to F_SETSIG in a multithreaded process running
with a threading library that supports thread groups (e.g., NPTL), then a
positive value given to F_SETOWN has a different meaning: instead of being a
process ID identifying a whole process, it is a thread ID identifying a spe‐
cific thread within a process. Consequently, it may be necessary to pass
F_SETOWN the result of gettid(2) instead of getpid(2) to get sensible
results when F_SETSIG is used. (In current Linux threading implementations,
a main thread's thread ID is the same as its process ID. This means that a
single-threaded program can equally use gettid(2) or getpid(2) in this sce‐
nario.) Note, however, that the statements in this paragraph do not apply
to the SIGURG signal generated for out-of-band data on a socket: this signal
is always sent to either a process or a process group, depending on the
value given to F_SETOWN.
The above behavior was accidentally dropped in Linux 2.6.12, and won't be restored.
From Linux 2.6.32 onward, use F_SETOWN_EX to target SIGIO and SIGURG signals at a
particular thread.
F_GETOWN_EX (struct f_owner_ex *) (since Linux 2.6.32)
Return the current file descriptor owner settings as defined by a previous
F_SETOWN_EX operation. The information is returned in the structure pointed to by
arg, which has the following form:
struct f_owner_ex {
int type;
pid_t pid;
};
The type field will have one of the values F_OWNER_TID, F_OWNER_PID, or
F_OWNER_PGRP. The pid field is a positive integer representing a thread ID,
process ID, or process group ID. See F_SETOWN_EX for more details.
F_SETOWN_EX (struct f_owner_ex *) (since Linux 2.6.32)
This operation performs a similar task to F_SETOWN. It allows the caller to direct
I/O availability signals to a specific thread, process, or process group. The
caller specifies the target of signals via arg, which is a pointer to a f_owner_ex
structure. The type field has one of the following values, which define how pid is
interpreted:
F_OWNER_TID
Send the signal to the thread whose thread ID (the value returned by a call
to clone(2) or gettid(2)) is specified in pid.
F_OWNER_PID
Send the signal to the process whose ID is specified in pid.
F_OWNER_PGRP
Send the signal to the process group whose ID is specified in pid. (Note
that, unlike with F_SETOWN, a process group ID is specified as a positive
value here.)
F_GETSIG (void)
Return (as the function result) the signal sent when input or output becomes possi‐
ble. A value of zero means SIGIO is sent. Any other value (including SIGIO) is
the signal sent instead, and in this case additional info is available to the sig‐
nal handler if installed with SA_SIGINFO. arg is ignored.
F_SETSIG (int)
Set the signal sent when input or output becomes possible to the value given in
arg. A value of zero means to send the default SIGIO signal. Any other value
(including SIGIO) is the signal to send instead, and in this case additional info
is available to the signal handler if installed with SA_SIGINFO.
By using F_SETSIG with a nonzero value, and setting SA_SIGINFO for the signal han‐
dler (see sigaction(2)), extra information about I/O events is passed to the han‐
dler in a siginfo_t structure. If the si_code field indicates the source is
SI_SIGIO, the si_fd field gives the file descriptor associated with the event.
Otherwise, there is no indication which file descriptors are pending, and you
should use the usual mechanisms (select(2), poll(2), read(2) with O_NONBLOCK set
etc.) to determine which file descriptors are available for I/O.
By selecting a real time signal (value >= SIGRTMIN), multiple I/O events may be
queued using the same signal numbers. (Queuing is dependent on available memory).
Extra information is available if SA_SIGINFO is set for the signal handler, as
above.
Note that Linux imposes a limit on the number of real-time signals that may be
queued to a process (see getrlimit(2) and signal(7)) and if this limit is reached,
then the kernel reverts to delivering SIGIO, and this signal is delivered to the
entire process rather than to a specific thread.
Using these mechanisms, a program can implement fully asynchronous I/O without using
select(2) or poll(2) most of the time.
The use of O_ASYNC is specific to BSD and Linux. The only use of F_GETOWN and F_SETOWN
specified in POSIX.1 is in conjunction with the use of the SIGURG signal on sockets.
(POSIX does not specify the SIGIO signal.) F_GETOWN_EX, F_SETOWN_EX, F_GETSIG, and F_SET‐
SIG are Linux-specific. POSIX has asynchronous I/O and the aio_sigevent structure to
achieve similar things; these are also available in Linux as part of the GNU C Library
(Glibc).
Leases
F_SETLEASE and F_GETLEASE (Linux 2.4 onward) are used (respectively) to establish a new
lease, and retrieve the current lease, on the open file description referred to by the
file descriptor fd. A file lease provides a mechanism whereby the process holding the
lease (the "lease holder") is notified (via delivery of a signal) when a process (the
"lease breaker") tries to open(2) or truncate(2) the file referred to by that file
descriptor.
F_SETLEASE (int)
Set or remove a file lease according to which of the following values is specified
in the integer arg:
F_RDLCK
Take out a read lease. This will cause the calling process to be notified
when the file is opened for writing or is truncated. A read lease can be
placed only on a file descriptor that is opened read-only.
F_WRLCK
Take out a write lease. This will cause the caller to be notified when the
file is opened for reading or writing or is truncated. A write lease may be
placed on a file only if there are no other open file descriptors for the
file.
F_UNLCK
Remove our lease from the file.
Leases are associated with an open file description (see open(2)). This means that dupli‐
cate file descriptors (created by, for example, fork(2) or dup(2)) refer to the same
lease, and this lease may be modified or released using any of these descriptors. Fur‐
thermore, the lease is released by either an explicit F_UNLCK operation on any of these
duplicate descriptors, or when all such descriptors have been closed.
Leases may be taken out only on regular files. An unprivileged process may take out a
lease only on a file whose UID (owner) matches the filesystem UID of the process. A
process with the CAP_LEASE capability may take out leases on arbitrary files.
F_GETLEASE (void)
Indicates what type of lease is associated with the file descriptor fd by returning
either F_RDLCK, F_WRLCK, or F_UNLCK, indicating, respectively, a read lease , a
write lease, or no lease. arg is ignored.
When a process (the "lease breaker") performs an open(2) or truncate(2) that conflicts
with a lease established via F_SETLEASE, the system call is blocked by the kernel and the
kernel notifies the lease holder by sending it a signal (SIGIO by default). The lease
holder should respond to receipt of this signal by doing whatever cleanup is required in
preparation for the file to be accessed by another process (e.g., flushing cached buffers)
and then either remove or downgrade its lease. A lease is removed by performing an
F_SETLEASE command specifying arg as F_UNLCK. If the lease holder currently holds a write
lease on the file, and the lease breaker is opening the file for reading, then it is suf‐
ficient for the lease holder to downgrade the lease to a read lease. This is done by per‐
forming an F_SETLEASE command specifying arg as F_RDLCK.
If the lease holder fails to downgrade or remove the lease within the number of seconds
specified in /proc/sys/fs/lease-break-time, then the kernel forcibly removes or downgrades
the lease holder's lease.
Once a lease break has been initiated, F_GETLEASE returns the target lease type (either
F_RDLCK or F_UNLCK, depending on what would be compatible with the lease breaker) until
the lease holder voluntarily downgrades or removes the lease or the kernel forcibly does
so after the lease break timer expires.
Once the lease has been voluntarily or forcibly removed or downgraded, and assuming the
lease breaker has not unblocked its system call, the kernel permits the lease breaker's
system call to proceed.
If the lease breaker's blocked open(2) or truncate(2) is interrupted by a signal handler,
then the system call fails with the error EINTR, but the other steps still occur as
described above. If the lease breaker is killed by a signal while blocked in open(2) or
truncate(2), then the other steps still occur as described above. If the lease breaker
specifies the O_NONBLOCK flag when calling open(2), then the call immediately fails with
the error EWOULDBLOCK, but the other steps still occur as described above.
The default signal used to notify the lease holder is SIGIO, but this can be changed using
the F_SETSIG command to fcntl(). If a F_SETSIG command is performed (even one specifying
SIGIO), and the signal handler is established using SA_SIGINFO, then the handler will
receive a siginfo_t structure as its second argument, and the si_fd field of this argument
will hold the descriptor of the leased file that has been accessed by another process.
(This is useful if the caller holds leases against multiple files).
File and directory change notification (dnotify)
F_NOTIFY (int)
(Linux 2.4 onward) Provide notification when the directory referred to by fd or any
of the files that it contains is changed. The events to be notified are specified
in arg, which is a bit mask specified by ORing together zero or more of the follow‐
ing bits:
DN_ACCESS A file was accessed (read(2), pread(2), readv(2), and similar)
DN_MODIFY A file was modified (write(2), pwrite(2), writev(2), truncate(2),
ftruncate(2), and similar).
DN_CREATE A file was created (open(2), creat(2), mknod(2), mkdir(2), link(2),
symlink(2), rename(2) into this directory).
DN_DELETE A file was unlinked (unlink(2), rename(2) to another directory,
rmdir(2)).
DN_RENAME A file was renamed within this directory (rename(2)).
DN_ATTRIB The attributes of a file were changed (chown(2), chmod(2), utime(2),
utimensat(2), and similar).
(In order to obtain these definitions, the _GNU_SOURCE feature test macro must be
defined before including any header files.)
Directory notifications are normally "one-shot", and the application must reregis‐
ter to receive further notifications. Alternatively, if DN_MULTISHOT is included
in arg, then notification will remain in effect until explicitly removed.
A series of F_NOTIFY requests is cumulative, with the events in arg being added to
the set already monitored. To disable notification of all events, make an F_NOTIFY
call specifying arg as 0.
Notification occurs via delivery of a signal. The default signal is SIGIO, but
this can be changed using the F_SETSIG command to fcntl(). (Note that SIGIO is one
of the nonqueuing standard signals; switching to the use of a real-time signal
means that multiple notifications can be queued to the process.) In the latter
case, the signal handler receives a siginfo_t structure as its second argument (if
the handler was established using SA_SIGINFO) and the si_fd field of this structure
contains the file descriptor which generated the notification (useful when estab‐
lishing notification on multiple directories).
Especially when using DN_MULTISHOT, a real time signal should be used for notifica‐
tion, so that multiple notifications can be queued.
NOTE: New applications should use the inotify interface (available since kernel
2.6.13), which provides a much superior interface for obtaining notifications of
filesystem events. See inotify(7).
Changing the capacity of a pipe
F_SETPIPE_SZ (int; since Linux 2.6.35)
Change the capacity of the pipe referred to by fd to be at least arg bytes. An
unprivileged process can adjust the pipe capacity to any value between the system
page size and the limit defined in /proc/sys/fs/pipe-max-size (see proc(5)).
Attempts to set the pipe capacity below the page size are silently rounded up to
the page size. Attempts by an unprivileged process to set the pipe capacity above
the limit in /proc/sys/fs/pipe-max-size yield the error EPERM; a privileged process
(CAP_SYS_RESOURCE) can override the limit. When allocating the buffer for the
pipe, the kernel may use a capacity larger than arg, if that is convenient for the
implementation. The actual capacity that is set is returned as the function
result. Attempting to set the pipe capacity smaller than the amount of buffer
space currently used to store data produces the error EBUSY.
F_GETPIPE_SZ (void; since Linux 2.6.35)
Return (as the function result) the capacity of the pipe referred to by fd.
RETURN VALUE
For a successful call, the return value depends on the operation:
F_DUPFD The new descriptor.
F_GETFD Value of file descriptor flags.
F_GETFL Value of file status flags.
F_GETLEASE
Type of lease held on file descriptor.
F_GETOWN Value of descriptor owner.
F_GETSIG Value of signal sent when read or write becomes possible, or zero for traditional
SIGIO behavior.
F_GETPIPE_SZ, F_SETPIPE_SZ
The pipe capacity.
All other commands
Zero.
On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.
ERRORS
EACCES or EAGAIN
Operation is prohibited by locks held by other processes.
EAGAIN The operation is prohibited because the file has been memory-mapped by another
process.
EBADF fd is not an open file descriptor, or the command was F_SETLK or F_SETLKW and the
file descriptor open mode doesn't match with the type of lock requested.
EDEADLK
It was detected that the specified F_SETLKW command would cause a deadlock.
EFAULT lock is outside your accessible address space.
EINTR For F_SETLKW, the command was interrupted by a signal; see signal(7). For F_GETLK
and F_SETLK, the command was interrupted by a signal before the lock was checked or
acquired. Most likely when locking a remote file (e.g., locking over NFS), but can
sometimes happen locally.
EINVAL The value specified in cmd is not recognized by this kernel.
EINVAL For F_DUPFD, arg is negative or is greater than the maximum allowable value. For
F_SETSIG, arg is not an allowable signal number.
EINVAL cmd is F_OFD_SETLK, F_OFD_SETLKW, or F_OFD_GETLK, and l_pid was not specified as
zero.
EMFILE For F_DUPFD, the process already has the maximum number of file descriptors open.
ENOLCK Too many segment locks open, lock table is full, or a remote locking protocol
failed (e.g., locking over NFS).
ENOTDIR
F_NOTIFY was specified in cmd, but fd does not refer to a directory.
EPERM Attempted to clear the O_APPEND flag on a file that has the append-only attribute
set.
CONFORMING TO
SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001. Only the operations F_DUPFD, F_GETFD, F_SETFD, F_GETFL,
F_SETFL, F_GETLK, F_SETLK, and F_SETLKW are specified in POSIX.1-2001.
F_GETOWN and F_SETOWN are specified in POSIX.1-2001. (To get their definitions, define
either _BSD_SOURCE, or _XOPEN_SOURCE with the value 500 or greater, or _POSIX_C_SOURCE
with the value 200809L or greater.)
F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC is specified in POSIX.1-2008. (To get this definition, define
_POSIX_C_SOURCE with the value 200809L or greater, or _XOPEN_SOURCE with the value 700 or
greater.)
F_GETOWN_EX, F_SETOWN_EX, F_SETPIPE_SZ, F_GETPIPE_SZ, F_GETSIG, F_SETSIG, F_NOTIFY,
F_GETLEASE, and F_SETLEASE are Linux-specific. (Define the _GNU_SOURCE macro to obtain
these definitions.)
F_OFD_SETLK, F_OFD_SETLKW, and F_OFD_GETLK are Linux-specific (and one must define
_GNU_SOURCE to obtain their definitions), but work is being done to have them included in
the next version of POSIX.1.
NOTES
The errors returned by dup2(2) are different from those returned by F_DUPFD.
File locking
The original Linux fcntl() system call was not designed to handle large file offsets (in
the flock structure). Consequently, an fcntl64() system call was added in Linux 2.4. The
newer system call employs a different structure for file locking, flock64, and correspond‐
ing commands, F_GETLK64, F_SETLK64, and F_SETLKW64. However, these details can be ignored
by applications using glibc, whose fcntl() wrapper function transparently employs the more
recent system call where it is available.
The errors returned by dup2(2) are different from those returned by F_DUPFD.
Record locks
Since kernel 2.0, there is no interaction between the types of lock placed by flock(2) and
fcntl().
Several systems have more fields in struct flock such as, for example, l_sysid. Clearly,
l_pid alone is not going to be very useful if the process holding the lock may live on a
different machine.
The original Linux fcntl() system call was not designed to handle large file offsets (in
the flock structure). Consequently, an fcntl64() system call was added in Linux 2.4. The
newer system call employs a different structure for file locking, flock64, and correspond‐
ing commands, F_GETLK64, F_SETLK64, and F_SETLKW64. However, these details can be ignored
by applications using glibc, whose fcntl() wrapper function transparently employs the more
recent system call where it is available.
Record locking and NFS
Before Linux 3.12, if an NFSv4 client loses contact with the server for a period of time
(defined as more than 90 seconds with no communication), it might lose and regain a lock
without ever being aware of the fact. (The period of time after which contact is assumed
lost is known as the NFSv4 leasetime. On a Linux NFS server, this can be determined by
looking at /proc/fs/nfsd/nfsv4leasetime, which expresses the period in seconds. The
default value for this file is 90.) This scenario potentially risks data corruption,
since another process might acquire a lock in the intervening period and perform file I/O.
Since Linux 3.12, if an NFSv4 client loses contact with the server, any I/O to the file by
a process which "thinks" it holds a lock will fail until that process closes and reopens
the file. A kernel parameter, nfs.recover_lost_locks, can be set to 1 to obtain the
pre-3.12 behavior, whereby the client will attempt to recover lost locks when contact is
reestablished with the server. Because of the attendant risk of data corruption, this
parameter defaults to 0 (disabled).
BUGS
F_SETFL
It is not possible to use F_SETFL to change the state of the O_DSYNC and O_SYNC flags.
Attempts to change the state of these flags are silently ignored.
F_GETOWN
A limitation of the Linux system call conventions on some architectures (notably i386)
means that if a (negative) process group ID to be returned by F_GETOWN falls in the range
-1 to -4095, then the return value is wrongly interpreted by glibc as an error in the sys‐
tem call; that is, the return value of fcntl() will be -1, and errno will contain the
(positive) process group ID. The Linux-specific F_GETOWN_EX operation avoids this prob‐
lem. Since glibc version 2.11, glibc makes the kernel F_GETOWN problem invisible by
implementing F_GETOWN using F_GETOWN_EX.
F_SETOWN
In Linux 2.4 and earlier, there is bug that can occur when an unprivileged process uses
F_SETOWN to specify the owner of a socket file descriptor as a process (group) other than
the caller. In this case, fcntl() can return -1 with errno set to EPERM, even when the
owner process (group) is one that the caller has permission to send signals to. Despite
this error return, the file descriptor owner is set, and signals will be sent to the
owner.
Deadlock detection
The deadlock-detection algorithm employed by the kernel when dealing with F_SETLKW
requests can yield both false negatives (failures to detect deadlocks, leaving a set of
deadlocked processes blocked indefinitely) and false positives (EDEADLK errors when there
is no deadlock). For example, the kernel limits the lock depth of its dependency search
to 10 steps, meaning that circular deadlock chains that exceed that size will not be
detected. In addition, the kernel may falsely indicate a deadlock when two or more pro‐
cesses created using the clone(2) CLONE_FILES flag place locks that appear (to the kernel)
to conflict.
Mandatory locking
The Linux implementation of mandatory locking is subject to race conditions which render
it unreliable: a write(2) call that overlaps with a lock may modify data after the manda‐
tory lock is acquired; a read(2) call that overlaps with a lock may detect changes to data
that were made only after a write lock was acquired. Similar races exist between manda‐
tory locks and mmap(2). It is therefore inadvisable to rely on mandatory locking.
SEE ALSO
dup2(2), flock(2), open(2), socket(2), lockf(3), capabilities(7), feature_test_macros(7)
locks.txt, mandatory-locking.txt, and dnotify.txt in the Linux kernel source directory
Documentation/filesystems/ (on older kernels, these files are directly under the Documen‐
tation/ directory, and mandatory-locking.txt is called mandatory.txt)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.74 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the
project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2014-09-06 FCNTL(2)
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