.\" $NetBSD: filedesc.9,v 1.5 2003/04/16 13:35:28 wiz Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 2002 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" This code is derived from software contributed to The NetBSD Foundation .\" by Gregory McGarry. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the NetBSD .\" Foundation, Inc. and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of The NetBSD Foundation nor the names of its .\" contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived .\" from this software without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE NETBSD FOUNDATION, INC. AND CONTRIBUTORS .\" ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED .\" TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR .\" PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FOUNDATION OR CONTRIBUTORS .\" BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR .\" CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF .\" SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS .\" INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN .\" CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) .\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE .\" POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .Dd October 12, 2002 .Dt FILEDESC 9 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm filedesc , .Nm dupfdopen , .Nm falloc , .Nm fd_getfile , .Nm fdalloc , .Nm fdavail , .Nm fdcheckstd , .Nm fdclear , .Nm fdcloseexec , .Nm fdcopy , .Nm fdexpand , .Nm fdfree , .Nm fdinit , .Nm fdrelease , .Nm fdremove , .Nm fdshare , .Nm fdunshare .Nd file descriptor tables and operations .Sh SYNOPSIS .In sys/file.h .In sys/filedesc.h .Ft int .Fn falloc "struct proc *p" "struct file **resultfp" "int *resultfd" .Ft struct file * .Fn fd_getfile "struct filedesc *fdp" "int fd" .Ft int .Fn dupfdopen "struct proc *p" "int indx" "int dfd" "int mode" "int error" .Ft int .Fn fdalloc "struct proc *p" "int want" "int *result" .Ft int .Fn fdavail "struct proc *p" "int n" .Ft int .Fn fdcheckstd "struct proc *p" .Ft void .Fn fdclear "struct proc *p" .Ft void .Fn fdcloseexec "struct proc *p" .Ft struct filedesc * .Fn fdcopy "struct proc *p" .Ft void .Fn fdexpand "struct proc *p" .Ft void .Fn fdfree "struct proc *p" .Ft struct filedesc * .Fn fdinit "struct proc *p" .Ft int .Fn fdrelease "struct proc *p" "int fd" .Ft void .Fn fdremove "struct filedesc *fdp" "int fd" .Ft void .Fn fdshare "struct proc *p1" "struct proc *p2" .Ft void .Fn fdunshare "struct proc *p" .Sh DESCRIPTION For user processes, all I/O is done through file descriptors. These file descriptors represent underlying objects supported by the kernel and are created by system calls specific to the type of object. In .Nx , three type of objects can be represented by file descriptors: data files, pipes, and sockets. .Pp The kernel maintains a descriptor table for each process which is used to translate the external representation of a file descriptor into an internal representation. The file descriptor is merely an index into this table. The file descriptor table maintains the following information: .Pp .Bl -bullet -compact .It the number of descriptors allocated in the file descriptor table; .It approximate next free descriptor; .It a reference count on the file descriptor table; and .It an array of open file entries. .El .Pp On creation of the file descriptor table, a fixed number of file entries are created. It is the responsibility of the file descriptor operations to expand the available number of entries if more are required. Each file entry in the descriptor table contains the information necessary to access the underlying object and to maintain common information. See .Xr file 9 for details of operations on the file entries. .Pp New file descriptors are generally allocated by .Fn falloc and freed by .Fn fdrelease . File entries are extracted from the file descriptor table by .Fn fd_getfile . Most of the remaining functions in the interface are purpose specific and perform lower-level file descriptor operations. .Sh FUNCTIONS The following functions are high-level interface routines to access the file descriptor table for a process and its file entries. .Pp .Bl -tag -width compact .It Fn falloc "p" "*resultfp" "*resultfd" Create a new open file entry and allocate a file descriptor for process .Fa p . This operation is performed by invoking .Fn fdalloc to allocate the new file descriptor. The credential on the file entry are inherited from process .Fa p . The .Fn falloc function is responsible for expanding the file descriptor table when necessary. .Pp A pointer to the file entry is returned in .Fa *resultfp and the file descriptor is returned in .Fa *resultfd . The .Fn falloc function returns zero on success, otherwise an appropriate error is returned. .It Fn fd_getfile "fdp" "fd" Get the file entry for file descriptor .Fa fd in the file descriptor table .Fa fdp . The file entry is returned if it is valid and useable, otherwise .Dv NULL is returned. .It Fn dupfdopen "p" "indx" "dfd" "mode" "error" Duplicate file descriptor .Fa dfd for process .Fa p . .El .Pp The following functions operate on the file descriptor table for a process. .Pp .Bl -tag -width compact .It Fn fdalloc "p" "want" "*result" Allocate a file descriptor .Fa want for process .Fa p . The resultant file descriptor is returned in .Fa *result . The .Fn fdalloc function returns zero on success, otherwise an appropriate error is returned. .It Fn fdavail "p" "n" Check to see whether .Fa n file descriptors are available to process .Fa p . Returns zero on success, or 1 on failure. .It Fn fdcheckstd "p" Check the standard file descriptors 0, 1, 2 and ensure they are referencing valid file descriptors. If they are not, create references to .Pa /dev/null . This operation is necessary as these file descriptors are given implicit significance in the Standard C Library and it is unsafe for .Xr setuid 2 and .Xr setgid 2 processes to be started with these file descriptors closed. .It Fn fdclear "p" Clear the descriptor table for process .Fa p . This operation is performed by invoking .Fn fdinit to initialise a new file descriptor table to replace the old file descriptor table and invoking .Fn fdfree to release the old one. .It Fn fdcloseexec "p" Close any files for process .Fa p that are marked .Dq close on exec . This operation is performed by invoking .Fn fdunshare for the process and invoking .Fn fdrelease on the appropriate file descriptor. .It Fn fdcopy "p" Copy the file descriptor table from process .Fa p and return a pointer to the copy. The returned file descriptor is guaranteed to have a reference count of one. All file descriptor state is maintained. The reference counts on each file entry referenced by the file descriptor table is incremented accordingly. .It Fn fdexpand "p" Expand the file descriptor table for process .Fa p by allocating memory for additional file descriptors. .It Fn fdfree "p" Decrement the reference count on the file descriptor table for process .Fa p and release the file descriptor table if the reference count drops to zero. .It Fn fdinit "p" Create a file descriptor table using the same current and root directories of process .Fa p . The returned file descriptor table is guaranteed to have a reference count of one. .It Fn fdrelease "p" "fd" Remove file descriptor .Fa fd from the file descriptor table of process .Fa p . The operation is performed by invoking .Fn closef . .It Fn fdremove "fdp" "fd" Unconditionally remove the file descriptor .Fa fd from file descriptor table .Fa fdp . .It Fn fdshare "p1" "p2" Share the file descriptor table belonging to process .Fa p1 with process .Fa p2 . Process .Fa p2 is assumed not to have a file descriptor table already allocated. The reference count on the file descriptor table is incremented. This function is used by .Xr fork1 9 . .It Fn fdunshare "p" Ensure that process .Fa p does not share its file descriptor table. If its file descriptor table has more than one reference, the file descriptor table is copied by invoking .Fn fdcopy . The reference count on the original file descriptor table is decremented. .El .Sh RETURN VALUES Successful operations return zero. A failed operation will return a non-zero return value. Possible values include: .Pp .Bl -tag -width Er .It Bq Er EBADF Bad file descriptor specified. .It Bq Er EMFILE Cannot exceed file descriptor limit. .It Bq Er ENOSPC No space left in file descriptor table. .El .Sh CODE REFERENCES This section describes places within the .Nx source tree where actual code implementing or using file descriptors can be found. All pathnames are relative to .Pa /usr/src . .Pp The framework for file descriptor handling is implemented within the file .Pa sys/kern/kern_descrip.c . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr file 9