shm_unlink(3)

1shm_open(3)                Library Functions Manual                shm_open(3)
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3
4

NAME

6       shm_open,  shm_unlink  -  create/open or unlink POSIX shared memory ob‐
7       jects
8

LIBRARY

10       Real-time library (librt, -lrt)
11

SYNOPSIS

13       #include <sys/mman.h>
14       #include <sys/stat.h>        /* For mode constants */
15       #include <fcntl.h>           /* For O_* constants */
16
17       int shm_open(const char *name, int oflag, mode_t mode);
18       int shm_unlink(const char *name);
19

DESCRIPTION

21       shm_open() creates and opens a new, or opens an existing, POSIX  shared
22       memory  object.   A  POSIX  shared  memory object is in effect a handle
23       which can be used by unrelated processes to mmap(2) the same region  of
24       shared  memory.  The shm_unlink() function performs the converse opera‐
25       tion, removing an object previously created by shm_open().
26
27       The operation of shm_open() is analogous  to  that  of  open(2).   name
28       specifies the shared memory object to be created or opened.  For porta‐
29       ble use, a shared memory object should be identified by a name  of  the
30       form  /somename;  that  is,  a null-terminated string of up to NAME_MAX
31       (i.e., 255) characters consisting of an initial slash, followed by  one
32       or more characters, none of which are slashes.
33
34       oflag  is  a bit mask created by ORing together exactly one of O_RDONLY
35       or O_RDWR and any of the other flags listed here:
36
37       O_RDONLY
38              Open the object for read access.  A shared memory object  opened
39              in this way can be mmap(2)ed only for read (PROT_READ) access.
40
41       O_RDWR Open the object for read-write access.
42
43       O_CREAT
44              Create  the shared memory object if it does not exist.  The user
45              and group ownership of the object are taken from the correspond‐
46              ing  effective IDs of the calling process, and the object's per‐
47              mission bits are set according to the low-order 9 bits of  mode,
48              except  that  those  bits  set in the process file mode creation
49              mask (see umask(2)) are cleared for the new object.   A  set  of
50              macro  constants  which  can be used to define mode is listed in
51              open(2).  (Symbolic definitions of these constants  can  be  ob‐
52              tained by including <sys/stat.h>.)
53
54              A new shared memory object initially has zero length—the size of
55              the object can be set using ftruncate(2).  The  newly  allocated
56              bytes of a shared memory object are automatically initialized to
57              0.
58
59       O_EXCL If O_CREAT was also specified, and a shared memory  object  with
60              the  given  name already exists, return an error.  The check for
61              the existence of the object, and its creation if it does not ex‐
62              ist, are performed atomically.
63
64       O_TRUNC
65              If  the shared memory object already exists, truncate it to zero
66              bytes.
67
68       Definitions of these flag values can  be  obtained  by  including  <fc‐
69       ntl.h>.
70
71       On  successful  completion shm_open() returns a new file descriptor re‐
72       ferring to the shared memory object.  This file descriptor  is  guaran‐
73       teed  to  be  the lowest-numbered file descriptor not previously opened
74       within the process.  The FD_CLOEXEC flag (see fcntl(2)) is set for  the
75       file descriptor.
76
77       The  file  descriptor  is  normally  used in subsequent calls to ftrun‐
78       cate(2) (for a newly created object) and  mmap(2).   After  a  call  to
79       mmap(2)  the file descriptor may be closed without affecting the memory
80       mapping.
81
82       The operation of shm_unlink() is analogous to unlink(2): it  removes  a
83       shared  memory  object  name, and, once all processes have unmapped the
84       object, deallocates and destroys the contents of the associated  memory
85       region.  After a successful shm_unlink(), attempts to shm_open() an ob‐
86       ject with the same name fail (unless O_CREAT was  specified,  in  which
87       case a new, distinct object is created).
88

RETURN VALUE

90       On  success,  shm_open() returns a file descriptor (a nonnegative inte‐
91       ger).  On success, shm_unlink() returns 0.  On failure, both  functions
92       return -1 and set errno to indicate the error.
93

ERRORS

95       EACCES Permission to shm_unlink() the shared memory object was denied.
96
97       EACCES Permission  was denied to shm_open() name in the specified mode,
98              or O_TRUNC was specified and the caller does not have write per‐
99              mission on the object.
100
101       EEXIST Both  O_CREAT  and  O_EXCL  were specified to shm_open() and the
102              shared memory object specified by name already exists.
103
104       EINVAL The name argument to shm_open() was invalid.
105
106       EMFILE The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors has
107              been reached.
108
109       ENAMETOOLONG
110              The length of name exceeds PATH_MAX.
111
112       ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been
113              reached.
114
115       ENOENT An attempt was made to shm_open() a name that did not exist, and
116              O_CREAT was not specified.
117
118       ENOENT An  attempt was to made to shm_unlink() a name that does not ex‐
119              ist.
120

ATTRIBUTES

122       For an  explanation  of  the  terms  used  in  this  section,  see  at‐
123       tributes(7).
124
125       ┌─────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────┐
126       │Interface                            │ Attribute     │ Value          │
127       ├─────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤
128       │shm_open(), shm_unlink()             │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe locale │
129       └─────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────┘
130

VERSIONS

132       POSIX  leaves  the  behavior of the combination of O_RDONLY and O_TRUNC
133       unspecified.  On Linux, this will  successfully  truncate  an  existing
134       shared memory object—this may not be so on other UNIX systems.
135
136       The  POSIX  shared memory object implementation on Linux makes use of a
137       dedicated tmpfs(5) filesystem that is normally mounted under /dev/shm.
138

STANDARDS

140       POSIX.1-2008.
141

HISTORY

143       glibc 2.2.  POSIX.1-2001.
144
145       POSIX.1-2001 says that the group ownership of a  newly  created  shared
146       memory object is set to either the calling process's effective group ID
147       or "a system default group  ID".   POSIX.1-2008  says  that  the  group
148       ownership may be set to either the calling process's effective group ID
149       or, if the object is visible in the filesystem, the  group  ID  of  the
150       parent directory.
151

EXAMPLES

153       The  programs  below  employ  POSIX  shared  memory  and  POSIX unnamed
154       semaphores to exchange a piece of data.  The  "bounce"  program  (which
155       must  be run first) raises the case of a string that is placed into the
156       shared memory by the "send" program.  Once the data has been  modified,
157       the  "send"  program  then  prints  the contents of the modified shared
158       memory.  An example execution of the two programs is the following:
159
160           $ ./pshm_ucase_bounce /myshm &
161           [1] 270171
162           $ ./pshm_ucase_send /myshm hello
163           HELLO
164
165       Further detail about these programs is provided below.
166
167   Program source: pshm_ucase.h
168       The following header file is included by both programs below.  Its pri‐
169       mary  purpose is to define a structure that will be imposed on the mem‐
170       ory object that is shared between the two programs.
171
172           #include <fcntl.h>
173           #include <semaphore.h>
174           #include <stdio.h>
175           #include <stdlib.h>
176           #include <sys/mman.h>
177           #include <sys/stat.h>
178           #include <unistd.h>
179
180           #define errExit(msg)    do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); \
181                                   } while (0)
182
183           #define BUF_SIZE 1024   /* Maximum size for exchanged string */
184
185           /* Define a structure that will be imposed on the shared
186              memory object */
187
188           struct shmbuf {
189               sem_t  sem1;            /* POSIX unnamed semaphore */
190               sem_t  sem2;            /* POSIX unnamed semaphore */
191               size_t cnt;             /* Number of bytes used in 'buf' */
192               char   buf[BUF_SIZE];   /* Data being transferred */
193           };
194
195   Program source: pshm_ucase_bounce.c
196       The "bounce" program creates a new shared memory object with  the  name
197       given  in  its  command-line argument and sizes the object to match the
198       size of the shmbuf structure defined in the header file.  It then  maps
199       the  object into the process's address space, and initializes two POSIX
200       semaphores inside the object to 0.
201
202       After the "send" program has posted the first of  the  semaphores,  the
203       "bounce"  program upper cases the data that has been placed in the mem‐
204       ory by the "send" program and then posts the second semaphore  to  tell
205       the "send" program that it may now access the shared memory.
206
207           /* pshm_ucase_bounce.c
208
209              Licensed under GNU General Public License v2 or later.
210           */
211           #include <ctype.h>
212
213           #include "pshm_ucase.h"
214
215           int
216           main(int argc, char *argv[])
217           {
218               int            fd;
219               char           *shmpath;
220               struct shmbuf  *shmp;
221
222               if (argc != 2) {
223                   fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s /shm-path\n", argv[0]);
224                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
225               }
226
227               shmpath = argv[1];
228
229               /* Create shared memory object and set its size to the size
230                  of our structure. */
231
232               fd = shm_open(shmpath, O_CREAT | O_EXCL | O_RDWR, 0600);
233               if (fd == -1)
234                   errExit("shm_open");
235
236               if (ftruncate(fd, sizeof(struct shmbuf)) == -1)
237                   errExit("ftruncate");
238
239               /* Map the object into the caller's address space. */
240
241               shmp = mmap(NULL, sizeof(*shmp), PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
242                           MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
243               if (shmp == MAP_FAILED)
244                   errExit("mmap");
245
246               /* Initialize semaphores as process-shared, with value 0. */
247
248               if (sem_init(&shmp->sem1, 1, 0) == -1)
249                   errExit("sem_init-sem1");
250               if (sem_init(&shmp->sem2, 1, 0) == -1)
251                   errExit("sem_init-sem2");
252
253               /* Wait for 'sem1' to be posted by peer before touching
254                  shared memory. */
255
256               if (sem_wait(&shmp->sem1) == -1)
257                   errExit("sem_wait");
258
259               /* Convert data in shared memory into upper case. */
260
261               for (size_t j = 0; j < shmp->cnt; j++)
262                   shmp->buf[j] = toupper((unsigned char) shmp->buf[j]);
263
264               /* Post 'sem2' to tell the peer that it can now
265                  access the modified data in shared memory. */
266
267               if (sem_post(&shmp->sem2) == -1)
268                   errExit("sem_post");
269
270               /* Unlink the shared memory object. Even if the peer process
271                  is still using the object, this is okay. The object will
272                  be removed only after all open references are closed. */
273
274               shm_unlink(shmpath);
275
276               exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
277           }
278
279   Program source: pshm_ucase_send.c
280       The  "send" program takes two command-line arguments: the pathname of a
281       shared memory object previously created by the "bounce" program  and  a
282       string that is to be copied into that object.
283
284       The program opens the shared memory object and maps the object into its
285       address space.  It then copies the data specified in its  second  argu‐
286       ment into the shared memory, and posts the first semaphore, which tells
287       the "bounce" program that it can  now  access  that  data.   After  the
288       "bounce"  program posts the second semaphore, the "send" program prints
289       the contents of the shared memory on standard output.
290
291           /* pshm_ucase_send.c
292
293              Licensed under GNU General Public License v2 or later.
294           */
295           #include <string.h>
296
297           #include "pshm_ucase.h"
298
299           int
300           main(int argc, char *argv[])
301           {
302               int            fd;
303               char           *shmpath, *string;
304               size_t         len;
305               struct shmbuf  *shmp;
306
307               if (argc != 3) {
308                   fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s /shm-path string\n", argv[0]);
309                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
310               }
311
312               shmpath = argv[1];
313               string = argv[2];
314               len = strlen(string);
315
316               if (len > BUF_SIZE) {
317                   fprintf(stderr, "String is too long\n");
318                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
319               }
320
321               /* Open the existing shared memory object and map it
322                  into the caller's address space. */
323
324               fd = shm_open(shmpath, O_RDWR, 0);
325               if (fd == -1)
326                   errExit("shm_open");
327
328               shmp = mmap(NULL, sizeof(*shmp), PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
329                           MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
330               if (shmp == MAP_FAILED)
331                   errExit("mmap");
332
333               /* Copy data into the shared memory object. */
334
335               shmp->cnt = len;
336               memcpy(&shmp->buf, string, len);
337
338               /* Tell peer that it can now access shared memory. */
339
340               if (sem_post(&shmp->sem1) == -1)
341                   errExit("sem_post");
342
343               /* Wait until peer says that it has finished accessing
344                  the shared memory. */
345
346               if (sem_wait(&shmp->sem2) == -1)
347                   errExit("sem_wait");
348
349               /* Write modified data in shared memory to standard output. */
350
351               write(STDOUT_FILENO, &shmp->buf, len);
352               write(STDOUT_FILENO, "\n", 1);
353
354               exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
355           }
356