.\" Hey Emacs! This file is -*- nroff -*- source. .\" .\" Copyright (C) 1996 Andries Brouwer .\" and Copyright (C) 2006 Michael Kerrisk .\" .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are .\" preserved on all copies. .\" .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a .\" permission notice identical to this one. .\" .\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this .\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no .\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from .\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not .\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual, .\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working .\" professionally. .\" .\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by .\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work. .\" .\" Modified 1997-01-31 by Eric S. Raymond .\" Modified 2000-03-25 by Jim Van Zandt .\" Modified 2001-10-04 by John Levon .\" Modified 2003-02-02 by Andi Kleen .\" Modified 2003-05-21 by Michael Kerrisk .\" MAP_LOCKED works from 2.5.37 .\" Modified 2004-06-17 by Michael Kerrisk .\" Modified 2004-09-11 by aeb .\" Modified 2004-12-08, from Eric Estievenart .\" Modified 2004-12-08, mtk, formatting tidy-ups .\" Modified 2006-12-04, mtk, various parts rewritten .\" .TH MMAP 2 2006-12-04 "Linux 2.6.19" "Linux Programmer's Manual" .SH NAME mmap, munmap \- map or unmap files or devices into memory .SH SYNOPSIS .nf .B #include .sp .BI "void *mmap(void *" start ", size_t " length \ ", int " prot ", int " flags , .BI " int " fd ", off_t " offset ); .sp .BI "int munmap(void *" start ", size_t " length ); .fi .SH DESCRIPTION .BR mmap () creates a new mapping in the virtual address space of the calling process. The starting address for the new mapping is specified in .IR start . The .I length argument specifies the length of the mapping. If .I start is NULL, then the kernel chooses the address at which to create the mapping; this is the most portable method of creating a new mapping. If .I start is not NULL, then the kernel takes it as a hint about where to place the mapping; on Linux, the mapping will be created at the next higher page boundary. The address of the new mapping is returned as the result of the call. The contents of a file mapping (as opposed to an anonymous mapping; see .B MAP_ANONYMOUS below), are initialised using .I length bytes starting at offset .I offset in the file (or other object) referred to by the file descriptor .IR fd . .I offset must be a multiple of the page size as returned by .IR sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE) . .LP The .I prot argument describes the desired memory protection of the mapping (and must not conflict with the open mode of the file). It is either .B PROT_NONE or the bitwise OR of one or more of the following flags: .TP 1.1i .B PROT_EXEC Pages may be executed. .TP .B PROT_READ Pages may be read. .TP .B PROT_WRITE Pages may be written. .TP .B PROT_NONE Pages may not be accessed. .LP The .I flags argument determines whether updates to the mapping are visible to other processes mapping the same region, and whether updates are caried through to the underlying file. This behaviour is determined by including exactly one of the following values in .IR flags : .TP 1.1i .B MAP_SHARED Share this mapping. Updates to the mapping are visible to other processes that map this file, and are carried through to the underlying file. The file may not actually be updated until .BR msync (2) or .BR munmap (2) is called. .TP .B MAP_PRIVATE Create a private copy-on-write mapping. Updates to the mapping are not visible to other processes mapping the same file, and are not carried through to the underlying file. It is unspecified whether changes made to the file after the .BR mmap () call are visible in the mapped region. .LP Both of these flags are described in POSIX.1-2001. In addition, zero or more of the following values can be ORed in .IR flags : .\" FIXME ? Place the following list in alphabetical order? .TP .B MAP_FIXED Don't interpret .I start as a hint: place the mapping at exactly that address. .I start must be a multiple of the page size. If the memory region specified by .I start and .I len overlaps pages of any existing mapping(s), then the overlapped part of the existing mapping(s) will be discarded. If the specified address cannot be used, .BR mmap () will fail. Because requiring a fixed address for a mapping is less portable, the use of this option is discouraged. .TP .B MAP_DENYWRITE This flag is ignored. .\" Introduced in 1.1.36, removed in 1.3.24. (Long ago, it signalled that attempts to write to the underlying file should fail with .BR ETXTBUSY . But this was a source of denial-of-service attacks.) .TP .B MAP_EXECUTABLE This flag is ignored. .\" Introduced in 1.1.38, removed in 1.3.24. Flag tested in proc_follow_link. .\" (Long ago, it signalled that the underlying file is an executable. .\" However, that information was not really used anywhere.) .\" Linus talked about DOS related to MAP_EXECUTABLE, but he was thinking of .\" MAP_DENYWRITE? .TP .B MAP_NORESERVE Do not reserve swap space for this mapping. When swap space is reserved, one has the guarantee that it is possible to modify the mapping. When swap space is not reserved one might get SIGSEGV upon a write if no physical memory is available. See also the discussion of the file .I /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory in .BR proc (5). In kernels before 2.6, this flag only had effect for private writable mappings. .TP .BR MAP_LOCKED " (since Linux 2.5.37)" Lock the pages of the mapped region into memory in the manner of .BR mlock () . This flag is ignored in older kernels. .\" If set, the mapped pages will not be swapped out. .TP .B MAP_GROWSDOWN Used for stacks. Indicates to the kernel virtual memory system that the mapping should extend downwards in memory. .TP .B MAP_ANON Synonym for .BR MAP_ANONYMOUS . Deprecated. .TP .B MAP_ANONYMOUS The mapping is not backed by any file; its contents are initialised to zero. The .I fd and .I offset arguments are ignored; however, some implementations require .I fd to be \-1 if .B MAP_ANONYMOUS (or .BR MAP_ANON ) is specified, and portable applications should ensure this. The use of .B MAP_ANONYMOUS in conjunction with .B MAP_SHARED is only supported on Linux since kernel 2.4. .TP .B MAP_FILE Compatibility flag. Ignored. .TP .B MAP_32BIT Put the mapping into the first 2GB of the process address space. Ignored when .B MAP_FIXED is set. This flag is currently only supported on x86-64 for 64bit programs. .TP .BR MAP_POPULATE " (since Linux 2.5.46)" Populate (prefault) page tables for a file mapping, by performing read-ahead on the file. Later accesses to the mapping will not be blocked by page faults. .TP .BR MAP_NONBLOCK " (since Linux 2.5.46)" Only meaningful in conjunction with .BR MAP_POPULATE . Don't perform read-ahead: only create page tables entries for pages that are already present in RAM. .LP Of the above flags, only .B MAP_FIXED is specified in POSIX.1-2001. However, most systems also support .B MAP_ANONYMOUS (or its synonym .BR MAP_ANON ). .LP Some systems document the additional flags MAP_AUTOGROW, MAP_AUTORESRV, MAP_COPY, and MAP_LOCAL. .LP Memory mapped by .BR mmap () is preserved across .BR fork (2), with the same attributes. .LP A file is mapped in multiples of the page size. For a file that is not a multiple of the page size, the remaining memory is zeroed when mapped, and writes to that region are not written out to the file. The effect of changing the size of the underlying file of a mapping on the pages that correspond to added or removed regions of the file is unspecified. The .BR munmap () system call deletes the mappings for the specified address range, and causes further references to addresses within the range to generate invalid memory references. The region is also automatically unmapped when the process is terminated. On the other hand, closing the file descriptor does not unmap the region. .LP The address .I start must be a multiple of the page size. All pages containing a part of the indicated range are unmapped, and subsequent references to these pages will generate SIGSEGV. It is not an error if the indicated range does not contain any mapped pages. For file-backed mappings, the .I st_atime field for the mapped file may be updated at any time between the .BR mmap () and the corresponding unmapping; the first reference to a mapped page will update the field if it has not been already. .LP The .I st_ctime and .I st_mtime field for a file mapped with .B PROT_WRITE and .B MAP_SHARED will be updated after a write to the mapped region, and before a subsequent .BR msync () with the .B MS_SYNC or .BR MS_ASYNC flag, if one occurs. .SH "RETURN VALUE" On success, .BR mmap () returns a pointer to the mapped area. On error, the value .B MAP_FAILED (that is, .I "(void *) \-1)" is returned, and .I errno is set appropriately. On success, .BR munmap () returns 0, on failure \-1, and .I errno is set (probably to .BR EINVAL ). .SH NOTES It is architecture dependent whether .B PROT_READ implies .B PROT_EXEC or not. Portable programs should always set .B PROT_EXEC if they intend to execute code in the new mapping. .SH ERRORS .TP .B EACCES A file descriptor refers to a non-regular file. Or .B MAP_PRIVATE was requested, but .I fd is not open for reading. Or .B MAP_SHARED was requested and .B PROT_WRITE is set, but .I fd is not open in read/write (O_RDWR) mode. Or .B PROT_WRITE is set, but the file is append-only. .TP .B EAGAIN The file has been locked, or too much memory has been locked (see .BR setrlimit (2)). .TP .B EBADF .I fd is not a valid file descriptor (and .B MAP_ANONYMOUS was not set). .TP .B EINVAL We don't like .IR start , .IR length , or .IR offset (e.g., they are too large, or not aligned on a page boundary). .TP .B EINVAL (since Linux 2.6.12), .I length was 0. .TP .B EINVAL .I flags contained neither .B MAP_PRIVATE or .BR MAP_SHARED , or contained both of these values. .TP .B ENFILE .\" This is for shared anonymous segments .\" [2.6.7] shmem_zero_setup()-->shmem_file_setup()-->get_empty_filp() The system limit on the total number of open files has been reached. .\" .TP .\" .B ENOEXEC .\" A file could not be mapped for reading. .TP .B ENODEV The underlying filesystem of the specified file does not support memory mapping. .TP .B ENOMEM No memory is available, or the process's maximum number of mappings would have been exceeded. .TP .B EPERM The .I prot argument asks for .B PROT_EXEC but the mapped area belongs to a file on a filesystem that was mounted no-exec. .\" (Since 2.4.25 / 2.6.0.) .TP .B ETXTBSY .B MAP_DENYWRITE was set but the object specified by .I fd is open for writing. .LP Use of a mapped region can result in these signals: .TP .B SIGSEGV Attempted write into a region mapped as read-only. .TP .B SIGBUS Attempted access to a portion of the buffer that does not correspond to the file (for example, beyond the end of the file, including the case where another process has truncated the file). .SH AVAILABILITY On POSIX systems on which .BR mmap (), .BR msync () and .BR munmap () are available, .B _POSIX_MAPPED_FILES is defined in to a value greater than 0. (See also .BR sysconf (3).) .\" POSIX.1-2001: It shall be defined to -1 or 0 or 200112L. .\" -1: unavailable, 0: ask using sysconf(). .\" glibc defines it to 1. .SH "CONFORMING TO" SVr4, 4.4BSD, POSIX.1-2001. .\" SVr4 documents additional error codes ENXIO and ENODEV. .\" SUSv2 documents additional error codes EMFILE and EOVERFLOW. .SH BUGS On Linux there are no guarantees like those suggested above under .BR MAP_NORESERVE . By default, any process can be killed at any moment when the system runs out of memory. In kernels before 2.6.7, the .B MAP_POPULATE flag only has effect if .I prot is specified as .BR PROT_NONE . SUSv3 specifies that .BR mmap () should fail if .I length is 0. However, in kernels before 2.6.12, .BR mmap () succeeded in this case: no mapping was created and the call returned .IR start . Since kernel 2.6.12, .BR mmap () fails with the error .B EINVAL for this case. .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR getpagesize (2), .BR mincore (2), .BR mlock (2), .BR mmap2 (2), .BR mremap (2), .BR msync (2), .BR remap_file_pages (2), .BR setrlimit (2), .BR shm_open (3) .br B.O. Gallmeister, POSIX.4, O'Reilly, pp. 128-129 and 389-391. .\" .\" Repeat after me: private read-only mappings are 100% equivalent to .\" shared read-only mappings. No ifs, buts, or maybes. -- Linus