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FCNTL(2)                      System Calls Manual                     FCNTL(2)

NAME
     fcntl - file descriptor control

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <fcntl.h>

     int
     fcntl(int fd, int cmd, ...);

DESCRIPTION
     fcntl() provides for control over descriptors.  The argument fd is a
     descriptor to be operated on by cmd as described below.  The third
     parameter is called arg and is technically a pointer to void, but it is
     interpreted as an int by some commands and ignored by others.

     Commands are:

     F_DUPFD          Return a new descriptor as follows:

                             Lowest numbered available descriptor greater
                              than or equal to arg, which is interpreted as an
                              int.
                             Same object references as the original
                              descriptor.
                             New descriptor shares the same file offset if
                              the object was a file.
                             Same access mode (read, write or read/write).
                             Same file status flags (i.e., both file
                              descriptors share the same file status flags).
                             The close-on-exec flag associated with the new
                              file descriptor is cleared to remain open across
                              execve(2) system calls.

     F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC  Same as F_DUPFD, but sets the close-on-exec property on
                      the file descriptor created.

     F_GETFD          Get the close-on-exec flag associated with the file
                      descriptor fd as FD_CLOEXEC.  If the returned value
                      ANDed with FD_CLOEXEC is 0, the file will remain open
                      across exec(), otherwise the file will be closed upon
                      execution of exec() (arg is ignored).

     F_SETFD          Set the close-on-exec flag associated with fd to arg,
                      where arg is either 0 or FD_CLOEXEC, as described above.

     F_GETFL          Get descriptor status flags, as described below (arg is
                      ignored).

     F_SETFL          Set descriptor status flags to arg, which is interpreted
                      as an int.

     F_GETOWN         Get the process ID or process group currently receiving
                      SIGIO and SIGURG signals; process groups are returned as
                      negative values (arg is ignored).

     F_SETOWN         Set the process or process group to receive SIGIO and
                      SIGURG signals; process groups are specified by
                      supplying arg as negative, otherwise arg is interpreted
                      as a process ID.  The argument arg is interpreted as an
                      int.

     F_CLOSEM         Close all file descriptors greater than or equal to fd.

     F_MAXFD          Return the maximum file descriptor number currently open
                      by the process.

     F_GETNOSIGPIPE   Return if the O_NOSIGPIPE flag is set in the file
                      descriptor.

     F_SETNOSIGPIPE   Set or clear the O_NOSIGPIPE in the file descriptor.

     F_GETPATH        Place a pathname corresponding to fd in the buffer
                      pointed to by arg.  arg should be pointing to a buffer
                      of at least MAXPATHLEN.

     F_ADD_SEALS      Add seals specified in arg to fd to restrict possible
                      operations on fd as described below.  Like flags,
                      multiple seals can be specified at once.  Additionally,
                      specifying seals that are already associated with fd is
                      a no-op.

     F_GET_SEALS      Get the seals currently associated with fd as described
                      below (arg is ignored).

     The set of valid flags for the F_GETFL and F_SETFL flags are as follows:
     O_APPEND, O_ASYNC, O_SYNC, O_NONBLOCK, O_DSYNC, O_RSYNC, O_ALT_IO,
     O_DIRECT, O_NOSIGPIPE.  These flags are described in open(2).

     Several commands are available for doing advisory file locking; they all
     operate on the following structure:

     struct flock {
             off_t   l_start;        /* starting offset */
             off_t   l_len;          /* len = 0 means until end of file */
             pid_t   l_pid;          /* lock owner */
             short   l_type;         /* lock type: read/write, etc. */
             short   l_whence;       /* type of l_start */
     };

     The commands available for advisory record locking are as follows:

     F_GETLK    Get the first lock that blocks the lock description pointed to
                by the third argument, arg, taken as a pointer to a struct
                flock (see above).  The information retrieved overwrites the
                information passed to fcntl in the flock structure.  If no
                lock is found that would prevent this lock from being created,
                the structure is left unchanged by this function call except
                for the lock type l_type, which is set to F_UNLCK.

     F_SETLK    Set or clear a file segment lock according to the lock
                description pointed to by the third argument, arg, taken as a
                pointer to a struct flock (see above).  As specified by the
                value of l_type, F_SETLK is used to establish shared (or read)
                locks (F_RDLCK) or exclusive (or write) locks, (F_WRLCK), as
                well as remove either type of lock (F_UNLCK).  If a shared or
                exclusive lock cannot be set, fcntl returns immediately with
                EAGAIN.

     F_SETLKW   This command is the same as F_SETLK except that if a shared or
                exclusive lock is blocked by other locks, the process waits
                until the request can be satisfied.  If a signal that is to be
                caught is received while fcntl is waiting for a region, the
                fcntl will be interrupted if the signal handler has not
                specified the SA_RESTART (see sigaction(2)).

     When a shared lock has been set on a segment of a file, other processes
     can set shared locks on that segment or a portion of it.  A shared lock
     prevents any other process from setting an exclusive lock on any portion
     of the protected area.  A request for a shared lock fails if the file
     descriptor was not opened with read access.

     An exclusive lock prevents any other process from setting a shared lock
     or an exclusive lock on any portion of the protected area.  A request for
     an exclusive lock fails if the file was not opened with write access.

     The value of l_whence is SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, or SEEK_END to indicate that
     the relative offset, l_start bytes, will be measured from the start of
     the file, current position, or end of the file, respectively.  The value
     of l_len is the number of consecutive bytes to be locked.  If l_len is
     negative, the result is undefined.  The l_pid field is only used with
     F_GETLK to return the process ID of the process holding a blocking lock.
     After a successful F_GETLK request, the value of l_whence is SEEK_SET.

     Locks may start and extend beyond the current end of a file, but may not
     start or extend before the beginning of the file.  A lock is set to
     extend to the largest possible value of the file offset for that file if
     l_len is set to zero.  If l_whence and l_start point to the beginning of
     the file, and l_len is zero, the entire file is locked.  If an
     application wishes only to do entire file locking, the flock(2) system
     call is much more efficient.

     There is at most one type of lock set for each byte in the file.  Before
     a successful return from an F_SETLK or an F_SETLKW request when the
     calling process has previously existing locks on bytes in the region
     specified by the request, the previous lock type for each byte in the
     specified region is replaced by the new lock type.  As specified above
     under the descriptions of shared locks and exclusive locks, an F_SETLK or
     an F_SETLKW request fails or blocks respectively when another process has
     existing locks on bytes in the specified region and the type of any of
     those locks conflicts with the type specified in the request.

     Possible seals are:

     F_SEAL_SEAL          Prevent any further seals from being added to fd.

     F_SEAL_SHRINK        Prevent the size of fd from decreasing.

     F_SEAL_GROW          Prevent the size of fd from increasing.

     F_SEAL_WRITE         Prevent any write operations to fd.  F_SEAL_WRITE
                          cannot be applied if fd has any memory mappings.

     F_SEAL_FUTURE_WRITE  Like F_SEAL_WRITE but allow any current memory
                          mappings of fd to remain open, including those with
                          PROT_WRITE.

NOTES
     For F_GETPATH:
        For vnodes, functionality is implemented using the reverse namei(9)
         cache.  The implications of this are
            For hard links where the file descriptor can resolve to multiple
             pathnames, the first entry found in the cache is returned.
            F_GETPATH may fail if the corresponding entry has been evicted
             from the LRU namei(9) cache and return ENOENT.
        For a file descriptor created by memfd_create(2), the name provided
         at fd creation, with the prefix "memfd:" is used.
        Other types of file descriptors are not handled, as well as symbolic
         links since there is currently no way to obtain a file descriptor
         pointing to a symbolic link.

RETURN VALUES
     Upon successful completion, the value returned depends on cmd as follows:

           F_DUPFD      A new file descriptor.

           F_GETFD      Value of flag (only the low-order bit is defined).

           F_GETFL      Value of flags.

           F_GETOWN     Value of file descriptor owner.

           F_MAXFD      Value of the highest file descriptor open by the
                        process.

           F_GET_SEALS  Value of the seals currently associated with fd.

           other        Value other than -1.

     Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the
     error.

COMPATIBILITY
     This interface follows the completely stupid semantics of AT&T System V
     UNIX and IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 ("POSIX.1") that require that all locks
     associated with a file for a given process are removed when any file
     descriptor for that file is closed by that process.  This semantic means
     that applications must be aware of any files that a subroutine library
     may access.  For example if an application for updating the password file
     locks the password file database while making the update, and then calls
     getpwnam(3) to retrieve a record, the lock will be lost because
     getpwnam(3) opens, reads, and closes the password database.  The database
     close will release all locks that the process has associated with the
     database, even if the library routine never requested a lock on the
     database.

     Another minor semantic problem with this interface is that locks are not
     inherited by a child process created using the fork(2) function.  The
     flock(2) interface has much more rational last close semantics and allows
     locks to be inherited by child processes.  Calling flock(2) is
     recommended for applications that want to ensure the integrity of their
     locks when using library routines or wish to pass locks to their
     children.  Note that flock(2) and fcntl locks may be safely used
     concurrently.

     All locks associated with a file for a given process are removed when the
     process terminates.

     A potential for deadlock occurs if a process controlling a locked region
     is put to sleep by attempting to lock the locked region of another
     process.  This implementation detects that sleeping until a locked region
     is unlocked would cause a deadlock and fails with an EDEADLK error.

ERRORS
     fcntl() will fail if:

     [EACCES]           The argument cmd is F_GETPATH and read or search
                        permission was denied for a component of the pathname.

     [EAGAIN]           The argument arg is F_SETLK, the type of lock (l_type)
                        is a shared lock (F_RDLCK) or exclusive lock
                        (F_WRLCK), and the segment of a file to be locked is
                        already exclusive-locked by another process; or the
                        type is an exclusive lock and some portion of the
                        segment of a file to be locked is already shared-
                        locked or exclusive-locked by another process.

     [EBADF]            fildes is not a valid open file descriptor.

                        The argument cmd is F_SETLK or F_SETLKW, the type of
                        lock (l_type) is a shared lock (F_RDLCK), and fildes
                        is not a valid file descriptor open for reading.

                        The argument cmd is F_SETLK or F_SETLKW, the type of
                        lock (l_type) is an exclusive lock (F_WRLCK), and
                        fildes is not a valid file descriptor open for
                        writing.

     [EBUSY]            The argument cmd is F_ADD_SEALS, arg contains
                        F_SEAL_WRITE and fd is currently mapped by mmap(2).

     [EDEADLK]          The argument cmd is F_SETLKW, and a deadlock condition
                        was detected.

     [EINTR]            The argument cmd is F_SETLKW, and the function was
                        interrupted by a signal.

     [EINVAL]           The argument cmd is invalid.

                        The argument cmd is F_DUPFD and arg is negative or
                        greater than the maximum allowable number (see
                        getdtablesize(3)).

                        The argument cmd is F_GETLK, F_SETLK, or F_SETLKW and
                        the data to which arg points is not valid, or fildes
                        refers to a file that does not support locking.

                        The argument cmd is F_ADD_SEALS or F_GET_SEALS and fd
                        does not support seals.

                        The argument cmd is F_ADD_SEALS and arg contains set
                        bits for unsupported seals.

     [EMFILE]           The argument cmd is F_DUPFD and the maximum number of
                        file descriptors permitted for the process are already
                        in use, or no file descriptors greater than or equal
                        to arg are available.

     [ENFILE]           cmd is F_DUPFD and system-wide the maximum allowed
                        number of file descriptors are currently open.

     [ENOENT]           The argument cmd is F_GETPATH and a component of the
                        pathname no longer exists.

     [ENOLCK]           The argument cmd is F_SETLK or F_SETLKW, and
                        satisfying the lock or unlock request would result in
                        the number of locked regions in the system exceeding a
                        system-imposed limit.

     [ENOMEM]           The argument cmd is F_GETPATH and insufficient memory
                        is available.

                        The argument cmd is F_GETLK, F_SETLK, or F_SETLKW, and
                        the file lock limit for the current unprivileged user
                        has been reached.  It can be modified using the
                        kern.maxfiles sysctl(7).

     [EPERM]            The argument cmd is F_ADD_SEALS and fd already has
                        F_SEAL_SEAL.

     [ERANGE]           The argument cmd is F_GETPATH and the resulting path
                        would be greater than MAXPATHLEN.

     [ESRCH]            cmd is F_SETOWN and the process ID given as argument
                        is not in use.

SEE ALSO
     close(2), execve(2), flock(2), open(2), sigaction(2), getdtablesize(3)

STANDARDS
     The fcntl() function conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 ("POSIX.1").

HISTORY
     The fcntl() function call appeared in 4.2BSD.

NetBSD 10.99                     July 5, 2023                     NetBSD 10.99