shmat, shmdt — System V shared memory operations
#include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/shm.h>
void
*shmat( |
int shmid, |
const void *shmaddr, | |
int shmflg) ; |
int
shmdt( |
const void *shmaddr) ; |
shmat
() attaches the
System V shared memory segment identified by shmid
to the address space of
the calling process. The attaching address is specified by
shmaddr
with one of
the following criteria:
If shmaddr
is NULL, the system chooses a suitable (unused)
page-aligned address to attach the segment.
If shmaddr
isn't NULL and SHM_RND
is specified in shmflg
, the attach
occurs at the address equal to shmaddr
rounded down to
the nearest multiple of SHMLBA
.
Otherwise, shmaddr
must be a
page-aligned address at which the attach occurs.
In addition to SHM_RND
,
the following flags may be specified in the shmflg
bit-mask argument:
SHM_EXEC
(Linux-specific; since Linux
2.6.9)Allow the contents of the segment to be executed. The caller must have execute permission on the segment.
SHM_RDONLY
Attach the segment for read-only access. The process must have read permission for the segment. If this flag is not specified, the segment is attached for read and write access, and the process must have read and write permission for the segment. There is no notion of a write-only shared memory segment.
SHM_REMAP
(Linux-specific)This flag specifies that the mapping of the
segment should replace any existing mapping in the
range starting at shmaddr
and continuing
for the size of the segment. (Normally, an
EINVAL error would
result if a mapping already exists in this address
range.) In this case, shmaddr
must not be
NULL.
The brk(2) value of the calling process is not altered by the attach. The segment will automatically be detached at process exit. The same segment may be attached as a read and as a read-write one, and more than once, in the process's address space.
A successful shmat
() call
updates the members of the shmid_ds
structure (see
shmctl(2)) associated
with the shared memory segment as follows:
shm_atime
is set to
the current time.
shm_lpid
is set to the process-ID of the calling process.
shm_nattch
is
incremented by one.
shmdt
() detaches the
shared memory segment located at the address specified by
shmaddr
from the
address space of the calling process. The to-be-detached
segment must be currently attached with shmaddr
equal to the value
returned by the attaching shmat
() call.
On a successful shmdt
()
call, the system updates the members of the shmid_ds
structure
associated with the shared memory segment as follows:
shm_dtime
is set to
the current time.
shm_lpid
is set to the process-ID of the calling process.
shm_nattch
is
decremented by one. If it becomes 0 and the segment
is marked for deletion, the segment is deleted.
On success, shmat
() returns
the address of the attached shared memory segment; on error,
(void *) −1 is
returned, and errno
is set to
indicate the error.
On success, shmdt
() returns
0; on error −1 is returned, and errno
is set to indicate the error.
shmat
() can fail with one of
the following errors:
The calling process does not have the required
permissions for the requested attach type, and does not
have the CAP_IPC_OWNER
capability in the user namespace that governs its IPC
namespace.
shmid
points
to a removed identifier.
Invalid shmid
value, unaligned
(i.e., not page-aligned and SHM_RND
was not specified) or invalid
shmaddr
value,
or can't attach segment at shmaddr
, or SHM_REMAP
was specified and
shmaddr
was
NULL.
Could not allocate memory for the descriptor or for the page tables.
shmdt
() errno
can fail with one of the following
errors:
There is no shared memory segment attached at
shmaddr
; or,
shmaddr
is not
aligned on a page boundary.
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4.
In SVID 3 (or perhaps earlier), the type of the shmaddr
argument was changed
from char * into
const void *, and the returned type
of shmat
() from char * into void *.
After a fork(2), the child inherits the attached shared memory segments.
After an execve(2), all attached shared memory segments are detached from the process.
Upon _exit(2), all attached shared memory segments are detached from the process.
Using shmat
() with
shmaddr
equal to NULL
is the preferred, portable way of attaching a shared memory
segment. Be aware that the shared memory segment attached in
this way may be attached at different addresses in different
processes. Therefore, any pointers maintained within the
shared memory must be made relative (typically to the
starting address of the segment), rather than absolute.
On Linux, it is possible to attach a shared memory segment even if it is already marked to be deleted. However, POSIX.1 does not specify this behavior and many other implementations do not support it.
The following system parameter affects shmat
():
SHMLBA
Segment low boundary address multiple. When
explicitly specifying an attach address in a call to
shmat
(), the caller
should ensure that the address is a multiple of this
value. This is necessary on some architectures, in
order either to ensure good CPU cache performance or to
ensure that different attaches of the same segment have
consistent views within the CPU cache. SHMLBA
is normally some multiple of
the system page size. (On many Linux architectures,
SHMLBA
is the same as the
system page size.)
The implementation places no intrinsic per-process limit
on the number of shared memory segments (SHMSEG
).
The two programs shown below exchange a string using a shared memory segment. Further details about the programs are given below. First, we show a shell session demonstrating their use.
In one terminal window, we run the "reader" program, which creates a System V shared memory segment and a System V semaphore set. The program prints out the IDs of the created objects, and then waits for the semaphore to change value.
$./svshm_string_read
shmid = 1114194; semid = 15
In another terminal window, we run the "writer" program. The "writer" program takes three command-line arguments: the IDs of the shared memory segment and semaphore set created by the "reader", and a string. It attaches the existing shared memory segment, copies the string to the shared memory, and modifies the semaphore value.
$ ./svshm_string_write 1114194 15 'Hello, world'
Returning to the terminal where the "reader" is running, we see that the program has ceased waiting on the semaphore and has printed the string that was copied into the shared memory segment by the writer:
Hello, world
The following header file is included by the "reader" and "writer" programs.
#include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/ipc.h> #include <sys/shm.h> #include <sys/sem.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <string.h> #define errExit(msg) do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); \ } while (0) union semun { /* Used in calls to semctl() */ int val; struct semid_ds * buf; unsigned short * array; #if defined(__linux__) struct seminfo * __buf; #endif }; #define MEM_SIZE 4096
The "reader" program creates a shared memory segment and a semaphore set containing one semaphore. It then attaches the shared memory object into its address space and initializes the semaphore value to 1. Finally, the program waits for the semaphore value to become 0, and afterwards prints the string that has been copied into the shared memory segment by the "writer".
/* svshm_string_read.c Licensed under GNU General Public License v2 or later. */ #include "svshm_string.h" int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int semid, shmid; union semun arg, dummy; struct sembuf sop; char *addr; /* Create shared memory and semaphore set containing one semaphore. */ shmid = shmget(IPC_PRIVATE, MEM_SIZE, IPC_CREAT | 0600); if (shmid == −1) errExit("shmget"); semid = semget(IPC_PRIVATE, 1, IPC_CREAT | 0600); if (shmid == −1) errExit("shmget"); /* Attach shared memory into our address space. */ addr = shmat(shmid, NULL, SHM_RDONLY); if (addr == (void *) −1) errExit("shmat"); /* Initialize semaphore 0 in set with value 1. */ arg.val = 1; if (semctl(semid, 0, SETVAL, arg) == −1) errExit("semctl"); printf("shmid = %d; semid = %d\n", shmid, semid); /* Wait for semaphore value to become 0. */ sop.sem_num = 0; sop.sem_op = 0; sop.sem_flg = 0; if (semop(semid, &sop, 1) == −1) errExit("semop"); /* Print the string from shared memory. */ printf("%s\n", addr); /* Remove shared memory and semaphore set. */ if (shmctl(shmid, IPC_RMID, NULL) == −1) errExit("shmctl"); if (semctl(semid, 0, IPC_RMID, dummy) == −1) errExit("semctl"); exit(EXIT_SUCCESS); }
The writer program takes three command-line arguments: the IDs of the shared memory segment and semaphore set that have already been created by the "reader", and a string. It attaches the shared memory segment into its address space, and then decrements the semaphore value to 0 in order to inform the "reader" that it can now examine the contents of the shared memory.
/* svshm_string_write.c Licensed under GNU General Public License v2 or later. */ #include "svshm_string.h" int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int semid, shmid; struct sembuf sop; char *addr; size_t len; if (argc != 4) { fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s shmid semid string\n", argv[0]); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } len = strlen(argv[3]) + 1; /* +1 to include trailing '\0' */ if (len > MEM_SIZE) { fprintf(stderr, "String is too big!\n"); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } /* Get object IDs from command−line. */ shmid = atoi(argv[1]); semid = atoi(argv[2]); /* Attach shared memory into our address space and copy string (including trailing null byte) into memory. */ addr = shmat(shmid, NULL, 0); if (addr == (void *) −1) errExit("shmat"); memcpy(addr, argv[3], len); /* Decrement semaphore to 0. */ sop.sem_num = 0; sop.sem_op = −1; sop.sem_flg = 0; if (semop(semid, &sop, 1) == −1) errExit("semop"); exit(EXIT_SUCCESS); }
This page is part of release 5.11 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
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man−pages/.
Copyright 1993 Giorgio Ciucci (giorgiocrcc.it) and Copyright 2020 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com> %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM) 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. %%%LICENSE_END Modified Sun Nov 28 17:06:19 1993, Rik Faith (faithcs.unc.edu) with material from Luigi P. Bai (lpbsoftint.com) Portions Copyright 1993 Luigi P. Bai Modified Tue Oct 22 22:04:23 1996 by Eric S. Raymond <esrthyrsus.com> Modified, 5 Jan 2002, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com> Modified, 19 Sep 2002, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com> Added SHM_REMAP flag description Modified, 27 May 2004, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com> Added notes on capability requirements Modified, 11 Nov 2004, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com> Language and formatting clean-ups Changed wording and placement of sentence regarding attachment of segments marked for destruction |