1EPOLL(7) Linux Programmer's Manual EPOLL(7)
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6 epoll - I/O event notification facility
7
9 #include <sys/epoll.h>
10
12 epoll is a variant of poll(2) that can be used either as an edge-trig‐
13 gered or a level-triggered interface and scales well to large numbers
14 of watched file descriptors. The following system calls are provided
15 to create and manage an epoll instance:
16 * An epoll instance created by epoll_create(2), which returns a file
18 descriptor referring to the epoll instance. (The more recent
19 epoll_create1(2) extends the functionality of epoll_create(2).)
20 * Interest in particular file descriptors is then registered via
22 epoll_ctl(2). The set of file descriptors currently registered on
23 an epoll instance is sometimes called an epoll set.
24 * Finally, the actual wait is started by epoll_wait(2).
26 Level-Triggered and Edge-Triggered
28 The epoll event distribution interface is able to behave both as edge-
29 triggered (ET) and as level-triggered (LT). The difference between the
30 two mechanisms can be described as follows. Suppose that this scenario
31 happens:
32 1. The file descriptor that represents the read side of a pipe (rfd) is
34 registered on the epoll instance.
35 2. A pipe writer writes 2 kB of data on the write side of the pipe.
37 3. A call to epoll_wait(2) is done that will return rfd as a ready file
39 descriptor.
40 4. The pipe reader reads 1 kB of data from rfd.
42 5. A call to epoll_wait(2) is done.
44 If the rfd file descriptor has been added to the epoll interface using
46 the EPOLLET (edge-triggered) flag, the call to epoll_wait(2) done in
47 step 5 will probably hang despite the available data still present in
48 the file input buffer; meanwhile the remote peer might be expecting a
49 response based on the data it already sent. The reason for this is
50 that edge-triggered mode only delivers events when changes occur on the
51 monitored file descriptor. So, in step 5 the caller might end up wait‐
52 ing for some data that is already present inside the input buffer. In
53 the above example, an event on rfd will be generated because of the
54 write done in 2 and the event is consumed in 3. Since the read opera‐
55 tion done in 4 does not consume the whole buffer data, the call to
56 epoll_wait(2) done in step 5 might block indefinitely.
57 An application that employs the EPOLLET flag should use nonblocking
59 file descriptors to avoid having a blocking read or write starve a task
60 that is handling multiple file descriptors. The suggested way to use
61 epoll as an edge-triggered (EPOLLET) interface is as follows:
62 i with nonblocking file descriptors; and
64 ii by waiting for an event only after read(2) or write(2)
66 return EAGAIN.
67 By contrast, when used as a level-triggered interface (the default,
69 when EPOLLET is not specified), epoll is simply a faster poll(2), and
70 can be used wherever the latter is used since it shares the same seman‐
71 tics.
72 Since even with edge-triggered epoll, multiple events can be generated
74 upon receipt of multiple chunks of data, the caller has the option to
75 specify the EPOLLONESHOT flag, to tell epoll to disable the associated
76 file descriptor after the receipt of an event with epoll_wait(2). When
77 the EPOLLONESHOT flag is specified, it is the caller's responsibility
78 to rearm the file descriptor using epoll_ctl(2) with EPOLL_CTL_MOD.
79 /proc interfaces
81 The following interfaces can be used to limit the amount of kernel mem‐
82 ory consumed by epoll:
83 /proc/sys/fs/epoll/max_user_watches (since Linux 2.6.28)
85 This specifies a limit on the total number of file descriptors
86 that a user can register across all epoll instances on the sys‐
87 tem. The limit is per real user ID. Each registered file
88 descriptor costs roughly 90 bytes on a 32-bit kernel, and
89 roughly 160 bytes on a 64-bit kernel. Currently, the default
90 value for max_user_watches is 1/25 (4%) of the available low
91 memory, divided by the registration cost in bytes.
92 Example for Suggested Usage
94 While the usage of epoll when employed as a level-triggered interface
95 does have the same semantics as poll(2), the edge-triggered usage
96 requires more clarification to avoid stalls in the application event
97 loop. In this example, listener is a nonblocking socket on which lis‐
98 ten(2) has been called. The function do_use_fd() uses the new ready
99 file descriptor until EAGAIN is returned by either read(2) or write(2).
100 An event-driven state machine application should, after having received
101 EAGAIN, record its current state so that at the next call to
102 do_use_fd() it will continue to read(2) or write(2) from where it
103 stopped before.
104 #define MAX_EVENTS 10
106 struct epoll_event ev, events[MAX_EVENTS];
107 int listen_sock, conn_sock, nfds, epollfd;
108 /* Set up listening socket, 'listen_sock' (socket(),
110 bind(), listen()) */
111 epollfd = epoll_create(10);
113 if (epollfd == -1) {
114 perror("epoll_create");
115 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
116 }
117 ev.events = EPOLLIN;
119 ev.data.fd = listen_sock;
120 if (epoll_ctl(epollfd, EPOLL_CTL_ADD, listen_sock, &ev) == -1) {
121 perror("epoll_ctl: listen_sock");
122 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
123 }
124 for (;;) {
126 nfds = epoll_wait(epollfd, events, MAX_EVENTS, -1);
127 if (nfds == -1) {
128 perror("epoll_pwait");
129 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
130 }
131 for (n = 0; n < nfds; ++n) {
133 if (events[n].data.fd == listen_sock) {
134 conn_sock = accept(listen_sock,
135 (struct sockaddr *) &local, &addrlen);
136 if (conn_sock == -1) {
137 perror("accept");
138 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
139 }
140 setnonblocking(conn_sock);
141 ev.events = EPOLLIN | EPOLLET;
142 ev.data.fd = conn_sock;
143 if (epoll_ctl(epollfd, EPOLL_CTL_ADD, conn_sock,
144 &ev) == -1) {
145 perror("epoll_ctl: conn_sock");
146 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
147 }
148 } else {
149 do_use_fd(events[n].data.fd);
150 }
151 }
152 }
153 When used as an edge-triggered interface, for performance reasons, it
155 is possible to add the file descriptor inside the epoll interface
156 (EPOLL_CTL_ADD) once by specifying (EPOLLIN|EPOLLOUT). This allows you
157 to avoid continuously switching between EPOLLIN and EPOLLOUT calling
158 epoll_ctl(2) with EPOLL_CTL_MOD.
159 Questions and Answers
161 Q0 What is the key used to distinguish the file descriptors registered
162 in an epoll set?
163 A0 The key is the combination of the file descriptor number and the
165 open file description (also known as an "open file handle", the
166 kernel's internal representation of an open file).
167 Q1 What happens if you register the same file descriptor on an epoll
169 instance twice?
170 A1 You will probably get EEXIST. However, it is possible to add a
172 duplicate (dup(2), dup2(2), fcntl(2) F_DUPFD) descriptor to the
173 same epoll instance. This can be a useful technique for filtering
174 events, if the duplicate file descriptors are registered with dif‐
175 ferent events masks.
176 Q2 Can two epoll instances wait for the same file descriptor? If so,
178 are events reported to both epoll file descriptors?
179 A2 Yes, and events would be reported to both. However, careful pro‐
181 gramming may be needed to do this correctly.
182 Q3 Is the epoll file descriptor itself poll/epoll/selectable?
184 A3 Yes. If an epoll file descriptor has events waiting then it will
186 indicate as being readable.
187 Q4 What happens if one attempts to put an epoll file descriptor into
189 its own file descriptor set?
190 A4 The epoll_ctl(2) call will fail (EINVAL). However, you can add an
192 epoll file descriptor inside another epoll file descriptor set.
193 Q5 Can I send an epoll file descriptor over a Unix domain socket to
195 another process?
196 A5 Yes, but it does not make sense to do this, since the receiving
198 process would not have copies of the file descriptors in the epoll
199 set.
200 Q6 Will closing a file descriptor cause it to be removed from all
202 epoll sets automatically?
203 A6 Yes, but be aware of the following point. A file descriptor is a
205 reference to an open file description (see open(2)). Whenever a
206 descriptor is duplicated via dup(2), dup2(2), fcntl(2) F_DUPFD, or
207 fork(2), a new file descriptor referring to the same open file
208 description is created. An open file description continues to
209 exist until all file descriptors referring to it have been closed.
210 A file descriptor is removed from an epoll set only after all the
211 file descriptors referring to the underlying open file description
212 have been closed (or before if the descriptor is explicitly removed
213 using epoll_ctl() EPOLL_CTL_DEL). This means that even after a
214 file descriptor that is part of an epoll set has been closed,
215 events may be reported for that file descriptor if other file
216 descriptors referring to the same underlying file description
217 remain open.
218 Q7 If more than one event occurs between epoll_wait(2) calls, are they
220 combined or reported separately?
221 A7 They will be combined.
223 Q8 Does an operation on a file descriptor affect the already collected
225 but not yet reported events?
226 A8 You can do two operations on an existing file descriptor. Remove
228 would be meaningless for this case. Modify will reread available
229 I/O.
230 Q9 Do I need to continuously read/write a file descriptor until EAGAIN
232 when using the EPOLLET flag (edge-triggered behavior) ?
233 A9 Receiving an event from epoll_wait(2) should suggest to you that
235 such file descriptor is ready for the requested I/O operation. You
236 must consider it ready until the next (nonblocking) read/write
237 yields EAGAIN. When and how you will use the file descriptor is
238 entirely up to you.
239 For packet/token-oriented files (e.g., datagram socket, terminal in
241 canonical mode), the only way to detect the end of the read/write
242 I/O space is to continue to read/write until EAGAIN.
243 For stream-oriented files (e.g., pipe, FIFO, stream socket), the
245 condition that the read/write I/O space is exhausted can also be
246 detected by checking the amount of data read from / written to the
247 target file descriptor. For example, if you call read(2) by asking
248 to read a certain amount of data and read(2) returns a lower number
249 of bytes, you can be sure of having exhausted the read I/O space
250 for the file descriptor. The same is true when writing using
251 write(2). (Avoid this latter technique if you cannot guarantee
252 that the monitored file descriptor always refers to a stream-ori‐
253 ented file.)
254 Possible Pitfalls and Ways to Avoid Them
256 o Starvation (edge-triggered)
257 If there is a large amount of I/O space, it is possible that by trying
259 to drain it the other files will not get processed causing starvation.
260 (This problem is not specific to epoll.)
261 The solution is to maintain a ready list and mark the file descriptor
263 as ready in its associated data structure, thereby allowing the appli‐
264 cation to remember which files need to be processed but still round
265 robin amongst all the ready files. This also supports ignoring subse‐
266 quent events you receive for file descriptors that are already ready.
267 o If using an event cache...
269 If you use an event cache or store all the file descriptors returned
271 from epoll_wait(2), then make sure to provide a way to mark its closure
272 dynamically (i.e., caused by a previous event's processing). Suppose
273 you receive 100 events from epoll_wait(2), and in event #47 a condition
274 causes event #13 to be closed. If you remove the structure and
275 close(2) the file descriptor for event #13, then your event cache might
276 still say there are events waiting for that file descriptor causing
277 confusion.
278 One solution for this is to call, during the processing of event 47,
280 epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DEL) to delete file descriptor 13 and close(2),
281 then mark its associated data structure as removed and link it to a
282 cleanup list. If you find another event for file descriptor 13 in your
283 batch processing, you will discover the file descriptor had been previ‐
284 ously removed and there will be no confusion.
285
287 The epoll API was introduced in Linux kernel 2.5.44. Support was added
288 to glibc in version 2.3.2.
289
291 The epoll API is Linux-specific. Some other systems provide similar
292 mechanisms, for example, FreeBSD has kqueue, and Solaris has /dev/poll.
293
295 epoll_create(2), epoll_create1(2), epoll_ctl(2), epoll_wait(2)
296
298 This page is part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project. A
299 description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
300 be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
301Linux 2009-02-01 EPOLL(7)