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NAME
futex - fast user-space locking
SYNOPSIS
#include <linux/futex.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
long futex(uint32_t *uaddr, int futex_op, uint32_t val,
const struct timespec *timeout, /* or: uint32_t val2 */
uint32_t *uaddr2, uint32_t val3);
Note: There is no glibc wrapper for this system call; see NOTES.
DESCRIPTION
The futex() system call provides a method for waiting until a certain condition becomes
true. It is typically used as a blocking construct in the context of shared-memory
synchronization. When using futexes, the majority of the synchronization operations are
performed in user space. A user-space program employs the futex() system call only when
it is likely that the program has to block for a longer time until the condition becomes
true. Other futex() operations can be used to wake any processes or threads waiting for a
particular condition.
A futex is a 32-bit value—referred to below as a futex word—whose address is supplied to
the futex() system call. (Futexes are 32 bits in size on all platforms, including 64-bit
systems.) All futex operations are governed by this value. In order to share a futex
between processes, the futex is placed in a region of shared memory, created using (for
example) mmap(2) or shmat(2). (Thus, the futex word may have different virtual addresses
in different processes, but these addresses all refer to the same location in physical
memory.) In a multithreaded program, it is sufficient to place the futex word in a global
variable shared by all threads.
When executing a futex operation that requests to block a thread, the kernel will block
only if the futex word has the value that the calling thread supplied (as one of the
arguments of the futex() call) as the expected value of the futex word. The loading of
the futex word's value, the comparison of that value with the expected value, and the
actual blocking will happen atomically and will be totally ordered with respect to
concurrent operations performed by other threads on the same futex word. Thus, the futex
word is used to connect the synchronization in user space with the implementation of
blocking by the kernel. Analogously to an atomic compare-and-exchange operation that
potentially changes shared memory, blocking via a futex is an atomic compare-and-block
operation.
One use of futexes is for implementing locks. The state of the lock (i.e., acquired or
not acquired) can be represented as an atomically accessed flag in shared memory. In the
uncontended case, a thread can access or modify the lock state with atomic instructions,
for example atomically changing it from not acquired to acquired using an atomic compare-
and-exchange instruction. (Such instructions are performed entirely in user mode, and the
kernel maintains no information about the lock state.) On the other hand, a thread may be
unable to acquire a lock because it is already acquired by another thread. It then may
pass the lock's flag as a futex word and the value representing the acquired state as the
expected value to a futex() wait operation. This futex() operation will block if and only
if the lock is still acquired (i.e., the value in the futex word still matches the
"acquired state"). When releasing the lock, a thread has to first reset the lock state to
not acquired and then execute a futex operation that wakes threads blocked on the lock
flag used as a futex word (this can be further optimized to avoid unnecessary wake-ups).
See futex(7) for more detail on how to use futexes.
Besides the basic wait and wake-up futex functionality, there are further futex operations
aimed at supporting more complex use cases.
Note that no explicit initialization or destruction is necessary to use futexes; the
kernel maintains a futex (i.e., the kernel-internal implementation artifact) only while
operations such as FUTEX_WAIT, described below, are being performed on a particular futex
word.
Arguments
The uaddr argument points to the futex word. On all platforms, futexes are four-byte
integers that must be aligned on a four-byte boundary. The operation to perform on the
futex is specified in the futex_op argument; val is a value whose meaning and purpose
depends on futex_op.
The remaining arguments (timeout, uaddr2, and val3) are required only for certain of the
futex operations described below. Where one of these arguments is not required, it is
ignored.
For several blocking operations, the timeout argument is a pointer to a timespec structure
that specifies a timeout for the operation. However, notwithstanding the prototype shown
above, for some operations, the least significant four bytes of this argument are instead
used as an integer whose meaning is determined by the operation. For these operations,
the kernel casts the timeout value first to unsigned long, then to uint32_t, and in the
remainder of this page, this argument is referred to as val2 when interpreted in this
fashion.
Where it is required, the uaddr2 argument is a pointer to a second futex word that is
employed by the operation.
The interpretation of the final integer argument, val3, depends on the operation.
Futex operations
The futex_op argument consists of two parts: a command that specifies the operation to be
performed, bitwise ORed with zero or more options that modify the behaviour of the
operation. The options that may be included in futex_op are as follows:
FUTEX_PRIVATE_FLAG (since Linux 2.6.22)
This option bit can be employed with all futex operations. It tells the kernel
that the futex is process-private and not shared with another process (i.e., it is
being used for synchronization only between threads of the same process). This
allows the kernel to make some additional performance optimizations.
As a convenience, <linux/futex.h> defines a set of constants with the suffix
_PRIVATE that are equivalents of all of the operations listed below, but with the
FUTEX_PRIVATE_FLAG ORed into the constant value. Thus, there are
FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, and so on.
FUTEX_CLOCK_REALTIME (since Linux 2.6.28)
This option bit can be employed only with the FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET,
FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI, and (since Linux 4.5) FUTEX_WAIT operations.
If this option is set, the kernel measures the timeout against the CLOCK_REALTIME
clock.
If this option is not set, the kernel measures the timeout against the
CLOCK_MONOTONIC clock.
The operation specified in futex_op is one of the following:
FUTEX_WAIT (since Linux 2.6.0)
This operation tests that the value at the futex word pointed to by the address
uaddr still contains the expected value val, and if so, then sleeps waiting for a
FUTEX_WAKE operation on the futex word. The load of the value of the futex word is
an atomic memory access (i.e., using atomic machine instructions of the respective
architecture). This load, the comparison with the expected value, and starting to
sleep are performed atomically and totally ordered with respect to other futex
operations on the same futex word. If the thread starts to sleep, it is considered
a waiter on this futex word. If the futex value does not match val, then the call
fails immediately with the error EAGAIN.
The purpose of the comparison with the expected value is to prevent lost wake-ups.
If another thread changed the value of the futex word after the calling thread
decided to block based on the prior value, and if the other thread executed a
FUTEX_WAKE operation (or similar wake-up) after the value change and before this
FUTEX_WAIT operation, then the calling thread will observe the value change and
will not start to sleep.
If the timeout is not NULL, the structure it points to specifies a timeout for the
wait. (This interval will be rounded up to the system clock granularity, and is
guaranteed not to expire early.) The timeout is by default measured according to
the CLOCK_MONOTONIC clock, but, since Linux 4.5, the CLOCK_REALTIME clock can be
selected by specifying FUTEX_CLOCK_REALTIME in futex_op. If timeout is NULL, the
call blocks indefinitely.
Note: for FUTEX_WAIT, timeout is interpreted as a relative value. This differs
from other futex operations, where timeout is interpreted as an absolute value. To
obtain the equivalent of FUTEX_WAIT with an absolute timeout, employ
FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET with val3 specified as FUTEX_BITSET_MATCH_ANY.
The arguments uaddr2 and val3 are ignored.
FUTEX_WAKE (since Linux 2.6.0)
This operation wakes at most val of the waiters that are waiting (e.g., inside
FUTEX_WAIT) on the futex word at the address uaddr. Most commonly, val is
specified as either 1 (wake up a single waiter) or INT_MAX (wake up all waiters).
No guarantee is provided about which waiters are awoken (e.g., a waiter with a
higher scheduling priority is not guaranteed to be awoken in preference to a waiter
with a lower priority).
The arguments timeout, uaddr2, and val3 are ignored.
FUTEX_FD (from Linux 2.6.0 up to and including Linux 2.6.25)
This operation creates a file descriptor that is associated with the futex at
uaddr. The caller must close the returned file descriptor after use. When another
process or thread performs a FUTEX_WAKE on the futex word, the file descriptor
indicates as being readable with select(2), poll(2), and epoll(7)
The file descriptor can be used to obtain asynchronous notifications: if val is
nonzero, then, when another process or thread executes a FUTEX_WAKE, the caller
will receive the signal number that was passed in val.
The arguments timeout, uaddr2, and val3 are ignored.
Because it was inherently racy, FUTEX_FD has been removed from Linux 2.6.26 onward.
FUTEX_REQUEUE (since Linux 2.6.0)
This operation performs the same task as FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE (see below), except that
no check is made using the value in val3. (The argument val3 is ignored.)
FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE (since Linux 2.6.7)
This operation first checks whether the location uaddr still contains the value
val3. If not, the operation fails with the error EAGAIN. Otherwise, the operation
wakes up a maximum of val waiters that are waiting on the futex at uaddr. If there
are more than val waiters, then the remaining waiters are removed from the wait
queue of the source futex at uaddr and added to the wait queue of the target futex
at uaddr2. The val2 argument specifies an upper limit on the number of waiters
that are requeued to the futex at uaddr2.
The load from uaddr is an atomic memory access (i.e., using atomic machine
instructions of the respective architecture). This load, the comparison with val3,
and the requeueing of any waiters are performed atomically and totally ordered with
respect to other operations on the same futex word.
Typical values to specify for val are 0 or 1. (Specifying INT_MAX is not useful,
because it would make the FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE operation equivalent to FUTEX_WAKE.)
The limit value specified via val2 is typically either 1 or INT_MAX. (Specifying
the argument as 0 is not useful, because it would make the FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE
operation equivalent to FUTEX_WAIT.)
The FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE operation was added as a replacement for the earlier
FUTEX_REQUEUE. The difference is that the check of the value at uaddr can be used
to ensure that requeueing happens only under certain conditions, which allows race
conditions to be avoided in certain use cases.
Both FUTEX_REQUEUE and FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE can be used to avoid "thundering herd"
wake-ups that could occur when using FUTEX_WAKE in cases where all of the waiters
that are woken need to acquire another futex. Consider the following scenario,
where multiple waiter threads are waiting on B, a wait queue implemented using a
futex:
lock(A)
while (!check_value(V)) {
unlock(A);
block_on(B);
lock(A);
};
unlock(A);
If a waker thread used FUTEX_WAKE, then all waiters waiting on B would be woken up,
and they would all try to acquire lock A. However, waking all of the threads in
this manner would be pointless because all except one of the threads would
immediately block on lock A again. By contrast, a requeue operation wakes just one
waiter and moves the other waiters to lock A, and when the woken waiter unlocks A
then the next waiter can proceed.
FUTEX_WAKE_OP (since Linux 2.6.14)
This operation was added to support some user-space use cases where more than one
futex must be handled at the same time. The most notable example is the
implementation of pthread_cond_signal(3), which requires operations on two futexes,
the one used to implement the mutex and the one used in the implementation of the
wait queue associated with the condition variable. FUTEX_WAKE_OP allows such cases
to be implemented without leading to high rates of contention and context
switching.
The FUTEX_WAKE_OP operation is equivalent to executing the following code
atomically and totally ordered with respect to other futex operations on any of the
two supplied futex words:
uint32_t oldval = *(uint32_t *) uaddr2;
*(uint32_t *) uaddr2 = oldval op oparg;
futex(uaddr, FUTEX_WAKE, val, 0, 0, 0);
if (oldval cmp cmparg)
futex(uaddr2, FUTEX_WAKE, val2, 0, 0, 0);
In other words, FUTEX_WAKE_OP does the following:
* saves the original value of the futex word at uaddr2 and performs an operation
to modify the value of the futex at uaddr2; this is an atomic read-modify-write
memory access (i.e., using atomic machine instructions of the respective
architecture)
* wakes up a maximum of val waiters on the futex for the futex word at uaddr; and
* dependent on the results of a test of the original value of the futex word at
uaddr2, wakes up a maximum of val2 waiters on the futex for the futex word at
uaddr2.
The operation and comparison that are to be performed are encoded in the bits of
the argument val3. Pictorially, the encoding is:
+---+---+-----------+-----------+
|op |cmp| oparg | cmparg |
+---+---+-----------+-----------+
4 4 12 12 <== # of bits
Expressed in code, the encoding is:
#define FUTEX_OP(op, oparg, cmp, cmparg) \
(((op & 0xf) << 28) | \
((cmp & 0xf) << 24) | \
((oparg & 0xfff) << 12) | \
(cmparg & 0xfff))
In the above, op and cmp are each one of the codes listed below. The oparg and
cmparg components are literal numeric values, except as noted below.
The op component has one of the following values:
FUTEX_OP_SET 0 /* uaddr2 = oparg; */
FUTEX_OP_ADD 1 /* uaddr2 += oparg; */
FUTEX_OP_OR 2 /* uaddr2 |= oparg; */
FUTEX_OP_ANDN 3 /* uaddr2 &= ~oparg; */
FUTEX_OP_XOR 4 /* uaddr2 ^= oparg; */
In addition, bitwise ORing the following value into op causes (1 << oparg) to be
used as the operand:
FUTEX_OP_ARG_SHIFT 8 /* Use (1 << oparg) as operand */
The cmp field is one of the following:
FUTEX_OP_CMP_EQ 0 /* if (oldval == cmparg) wake */
FUTEX_OP_CMP_NE 1 /* if (oldval != cmparg) wake */
FUTEX_OP_CMP_LT 2 /* if (oldval < cmparg) wake */
FUTEX_OP_CMP_LE 3 /* if (oldval <= cmparg) wake */
FUTEX_OP_CMP_GT 4 /* if (oldval > cmparg) wake */
FUTEX_OP_CMP_GE 5 /* if (oldval >= cmparg) wake */
The return value of FUTEX_WAKE_OP is the sum of the number of waiters woken on the
futex uaddr plus the number of waiters woken on the futex uaddr2.
FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET (since Linux 2.6.25)
This operation is like FUTEX_WAIT except that val3 is used to provide a 32-bit bit
mask to the kernel. This bit mask, in which at least one bit must be set, is
stored in the kernel-internal state of the waiter. See the description of
FUTEX_WAKE_BITSET for further details.
If timeout is not NULL, the structure it points to specifies an absolute timeout
for the wait operation. If timeout is NULL, the operation can block indefinitely.
The uaddr2 argument is ignored.
FUTEX_WAKE_BITSET (since Linux 2.6.25)
This operation is the same as FUTEX_WAKE except that the val3 argument is used to
provide a 32-bit bit mask to the kernel. This bit mask, in which at least one bit
must be set, is used to select which waiters should be woken up. The selection is
done by a bitwise AND of the "wake" bit mask (i.e., the value in val3) and the bit
mask which is stored in the kernel-internal state of the waiter (the "wait" bit
mask that is set using FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET). All of the waiters for which the result
of the AND is nonzero are woken up; the remaining waiters are left sleeping.
The effect of FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET and FUTEX_WAKE_BITSET is to allow selective wake-
ups among multiple waiters that are blocked on the same futex. However, note that,
depending on the use case, employing this bit-mask multiplexing feature on a futex
can be less efficient than simply using multiple futexes, because employing bit-
mask multiplexing requires the kernel to check all waiters on a futex, including
those that are not interested in being woken up (i.e., they do not have the
relevant bit set in their "wait" bit mask).
The constant FUTEX_BITSET_MATCH_ANY, which corresponds to all 32 bits set in the
bit mask, can be used as the val3 argument for FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET and
FUTEX_WAKE_BITSET. Other than differences in the handling of the timeout argument,
the FUTEX_WAIT operation is equivalent to FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET with val3 specified as
FUTEX_BITSET_MATCH_ANY; that is, allow a wake-up by any waker. The FUTEX_WAKE
operation is equivalent to FUTEX_WAKE_BITSET with val3 specified as
FUTEX_BITSET_MATCH_ANY; that is, wake up any waiter(s).
The uaddr2 and timeout arguments are ignored.
Priority-inheritance futexes
Linux supports priority-inheritance (PI) futexes in order to handle priority-inversion
problems that can be encountered with normal futex locks. Priority inversion is the
problem that occurs when a high-priority task is blocked waiting to acquire a lock held by
a low-priority task, while tasks at an intermediate priority continuously preempt the low-
priority task from the CPU. Consequently, the low-priority task makes no progress toward
releasing the lock, and the high-priority task remains blocked.
Priority inheritance is a mechanism for dealing with the priority-inversion problem. With
this mechanism, when a high-priority task becomes blocked by a lock held by a low-priority
task, the priority of the low-priority task is temporarily raised to that of the high-
priority task, so that it is not preempted by any intermediate level tasks, and can thus
make progress toward releasing the lock. To be effective, priority inheritance must be
transitive, meaning that if a high-priority task blocks on a lock held by a lower-priority
task that is itself blocked by a lock held by another intermediate-priority task (and so
on, for chains of arbitrary length), then both of those tasks (or more generally, all of
the tasks in a lock chain) have their priorities raised to be the same as the high-
priority task.
From a user-space perspective, what makes a futex PI-aware is a policy agreement
(described below) between user space and the kernel about the value of the futex word,
coupled with the use of the PI-futex operations described below. (Unlike the other futex
operations described above, the PI-futex operations are designed for the implementation of
very specific IPC mechanisms.)
The PI-futex operations described below differ from the other futex operations in that
they impose policy on the use of the value of the futex word:
* If the lock is not acquired, the futex word's value shall be 0.
* If the lock is acquired, the futex word's value shall be the thread ID (TID; see
gettid(2)) of the owning thread.
* If the lock is owned and there are threads contending for the lock, then the
FUTEX_WAITERS bit shall be set in the futex word's value; in other words, this value
is:
FUTEX_WAITERS | TID
(Note that is invalid for a PI futex word to have no owner and FUTEX_WAITERS set.)
With this policy in place, a user-space application can acquire an unacquired lock or
release a lock using atomic instructions executed in user mode (e.g., a compare-and-swap
operation such as cmpxchg on the x86 architecture). Acquiring a lock simply consists of
using compare-and-swap to atomically set the futex word's value to the caller's TID if its
previous value was 0. Releasing a lock requires using compare-and-swap to set the futex
word's value to 0 if the previous value was the expected TID.
If a futex is already acquired (i.e., has a nonzero value), waiters must employ the
FUTEX_LOCK_PI operation to acquire the lock. If other threads are waiting for the lock,
then the FUTEX_WAITERS bit is set in the futex value; in this case, the lock owner must
employ the FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI operation to release the lock.
In the cases where callers are forced into the kernel (i.e., required to perform a futex()
call), they then deal directly with a so-called RT-mutex, a kernel locking mechanism which
implements the required priority-inheritance semantics. After the RT-mutex is acquired,
the futex value is updated accordingly, before the calling thread returns to user space.
It is important to note that the kernel will update the futex word's value prior to
returning to user space. (This prevents the possibility of the futex word's value ending
up in an invalid state, such as having an owner but the value being 0, or having waiters
but not having the FUTEX_WAITERS bit set.)
If a futex has an associated RT-mutex in the kernel (i.e., there are blocked waiters) and
the owner of the futex/RT-mutex dies unexpectedly, then the kernel cleans up the RT-mutex
and hands it over to the next waiter. This in turn requires that the user-space value is
updated accordingly. To indicate that this is required, the kernel sets the
FUTEX_OWNER_DIED bit in the futex word along with the thread ID of the new owner. User
space can detect this situation via the presence of the FUTEX_OWNER_DIED bit and is then
responsible for cleaning up the stale state left over by the dead owner.
PI futexes are operated on by specifying one of the values listed below in futex_op. Note
that the PI futex operations must be used as paired operations and are subject to some
additional requirements:
* FUTEX_LOCK_PI and FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI pair with FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI. FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI must be
called only on a futex owned by the calling thread, as defined by the value policy,
otherwise the error EPERM results.
* FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI pairs with FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI. This must be performed from a
non-PI futex to a distinct PI futex (or the error EINVAL results). Additionally, val
(the number of waiters to be woken) must be 1 (or the error EINVAL results).
The PI futex operations are as follows:
FUTEX_LOCK_PI (since Linux 2.6.18)
This operation is used after an attempt to acquire the lock via an atomic user-mode
instruction failed because the futex word has a nonzero value—specifically, because
it contained the (PID-namespace-specific) TID of the lock owner.
The operation checks the value of the futex word at the address uaddr. If the
value is 0, then the kernel tries to atomically set the futex value to the caller's
TID. If the futex word's value is nonzero, the kernel atomically sets the
FUTEX_WAITERS bit, which signals the futex owner that it cannot unlock the futex in
user space atomically by setting the futex value to 0. After that, the kernel:
1. Tries to find the thread which is associated with the owner TID.
2. Creates or reuses kernel state on behalf of the owner. (If this is the first
waiter, there is no kernel state for this futex, so kernel state is created by
locking the RT-mutex and the futex owner is made the owner of the RT-mutex. If
there are existing waiters, then the existing state is reused.)
3. Attaches the waiter to the futex (i.e., the waiter is enqueued on the RT-mutex
waiter list).
If more than one waiter exists, the enqueueing of the waiter is in descending
priority order. (For information on priority ordering, see the discussion of the
SCHED_DEADLINE, SCHED_FIFO, and SCHED_RR scheduling policies in sched(7).) The
owner inherits either the waiter's CPU bandwidth (if the waiter is scheduled under
the SCHED_DEADLINE policy) or the waiter's priority (if the waiter is scheduled
under the SCHED_RR or SCHED_FIFO policy). This inheritance follows the lock chain
in the case of nested locking and performs deadlock detection.
The timeout argument provides a timeout for the lock attempt. If timeout is not
NULL, the structure it points to specifies an absolute timeout, measured against
the CLOCK_REALTIME clock. If timeout is NULL, the operation will block
indefinitely.
The uaddr2, val, and val3 arguments are ignored.
FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI (since Linux 2.6.18)
This operation tries to acquire the lock at uaddr. It is invoked when a user-space
atomic acquire did not succeed because the futex word was not 0.
Because the kernel has access to more state information than user space,
acquisition of the lock might succeed if performed by the kernel in cases where the
futex word (i.e., the state information accessible to use-space) contains stale
state (FUTEX_WAITERS and/or FUTEX_OWNER_DIED). This can happen when the owner of
the futex died. User space cannot handle this condition in a race-free manner, but
the kernel can fix this up and acquire the futex.
The uaddr2, val, timeout, and val3 arguments are ignored.
FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI (since Linux 2.6.18)
This operation wakes the top priority waiter that is waiting in FUTEX_LOCK_PI on
the futex address provided by the uaddr argument.
This is called when the user-space value at uaddr cannot be changed atomically from
a TID (of the owner) to 0.
The uaddr2, val, timeout, and val3 arguments are ignored.
FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI (since Linux 2.6.31)
This operation is a PI-aware variant of FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE. It requeues waiters
that are blocked via FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI on uaddr from a non-PI source futex
(uaddr) to a PI target futex (uaddr2).
As with FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE, this operation wakes up a maximum of val waiters that
are waiting on the futex at uaddr. However, for FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI, val is
required to be 1 (since the main point is to avoid a thundering herd). The
remaining waiters are removed from the wait queue of the source futex at uaddr and
added to the wait queue of the target futex at uaddr2.
The val2 and val3 arguments serve the same purposes as for FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE.
FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI (since Linux 2.6.31)
Wait on a non-PI futex at uaddr and potentially be requeued (via a
FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI operation in another task) onto a PI futex at uaddr2. The
wait operation on uaddr is the same as for FUTEX_WAIT.
The waiter can be removed from the wait on uaddr without requeueing on uaddr2 via a
FUTEX_WAKE operation in another task. In this case, the FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI
operation fails with the error EAGAIN.
If timeout is not NULL, the structure it points to specifies an absolute timeout
for the wait operation. If timeout is NULL, the operation can block indefinitely.
The val3 argument is ignored.
The FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI and FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI were added to support a fairly
specific use case: support for priority-inheritance-aware POSIX threads condition
variables. The idea is that these operations should always be paired, in order to
ensure that user space and the kernel remain in sync. Thus, in the
FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI operation, the user-space application pre-specifies the
target of the requeue that takes place in the FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI operation.
RETURN VALUE
In the event of an error (and assuming that futex() was invoked via syscall(2)), all
operations return -1 and set errno to indicate the cause of the error.
The return value on success depends on the operation, as described in the following list:
FUTEX_WAIT
Returns 0 if the caller was woken up. Note that a wake-up can also be caused by
common futex usage patterns in unrelated code that happened to have previously used
the futex word's memory location (e.g., typical futex-based implementations of
Pthreads mutexes can cause this under some conditions). Therefore, callers should
always conservatively assume that a return value of 0 can mean a spurious wake-up,
and use the futex word's value (i.e., the user-space synchronization scheme) to
decide whether to continue to block or not.
FUTEX_WAKE
Returns the number of waiters that were woken up.
FUTEX_FD
Returns the new file descriptor associated with the futex.
FUTEX_REQUEUE
Returns the number of waiters that were woken up.
FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE
Returns the total number of waiters that were woken up or requeued to the futex for
the futex word at uaddr2. If this value is greater than val, then the difference
is the number of waiters requeued to the futex for the futex word at uaddr2.
FUTEX_WAKE_OP
Returns the total number of waiters that were woken up. This is the sum of the
woken waiters on the two futexes for the futex words at uaddr and uaddr2.
FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET
Returns 0 if the caller was woken up. See FUTEX_WAIT for how to interpret this
correctly in practice.
FUTEX_WAKE_BITSET
Returns the number of waiters that were woken up.
FUTEX_LOCK_PI
Returns 0 if the futex was successfully locked.
FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI
Returns 0 if the futex was successfully locked.
FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI
Returns 0 if the futex was successfully unlocked.
FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI
Returns the total number of waiters that were woken up or requeued to the futex for
the futex word at uaddr2. If this value is greater than val, then difference is
the number of waiters requeued to the futex for the futex word at uaddr2.
FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI
Returns 0 if the caller was successfully requeued to the futex for the futex word
at uaddr2.
ERRORS
EACCES No read access to the memory of a futex word.
EAGAIN (FUTEX_WAIT, FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET, FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI) The value pointed to by
uaddr was not equal to the expected value val at the time of the call.
Note: on Linux, the symbolic names EAGAIN and EWOULDBLOCK (both of which appear in
different parts of the kernel futex code) have the same value.
EAGAIN (FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE, FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The value pointed to by uaddr is not
equal to the expected value val3.
EAGAIN (FUTEX_LOCK_PI, FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI, FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The futex owner thread ID
of uaddr (for FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI: uaddr2) is about to exit, but has not yet
handled the internal state cleanup. Try again.
EDEADLK
(FUTEX_LOCK_PI, FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI, FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The futex word at uaddr is
already locked by the caller.
EDEADLK
(FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) While requeueing a waiter to the PI futex for the futex word
at uaddr2, the kernel detected a deadlock.
EFAULT A required pointer argument (i.e., uaddr, uaddr2, or timeout) did not point to a
valid user-space address.
EINTR A FUTEX_WAIT or FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET operation was interrupted by a signal (see
signal(7)). In kernels before Linux 2.6.22, this error could also be returned for
a spurious wakeup; since Linux 2.6.22, this no longer happens.
EINVAL The operation in futex_op is one of those that employs a timeout, but the supplied
timeout argument was invalid (tv_sec was less than zero, or tv_nsec was not less
than 1,000,000,000).
EINVAL The operation specified in futex_op employs one or both of the pointers uaddr and
uaddr2, but one of these does not point to a valid object—that is, the address is
not four-byte-aligned.
EINVAL (FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET, FUTEX_WAKE_BITSET) The bit mask supplied in val3 is zero.
EINVAL (FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) uaddr equals uaddr2 (i.e., an attempt was made to requeue to
the same futex).
EINVAL (FUTEX_FD) The signal number supplied in val is invalid.
EINVAL (FUTEX_WAKE, FUTEX_WAKE_OP, FUTEX_WAKE_BITSET, FUTEX_REQUEUE, FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE)
The kernel detected an inconsistency between the user-space state at uaddr and the
kernel state—that is, it detected a waiter which waits in FUTEX_LOCK_PI on uaddr.
EINVAL (FUTEX_LOCK_PI, FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI, FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI) The kernel detected an
inconsistency between the user-space state at uaddr and the kernel state. This
indicates either state corruption or that the kernel found a waiter on uaddr which
is waiting via FUTEX_WAIT or FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET.
EINVAL (FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The kernel detected an inconsistency between the user-space
state at uaddr2 and the kernel state; that is, the kernel detected a waiter which
waits via FUTEX_WAIT or FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET on uaddr2.
EINVAL (FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The kernel detected an inconsistency between the user-space
state at uaddr and the kernel state; that is, the kernel detected a waiter which
waits via FUTEX_WAIT or FUTEX_WAIT_BITESET on uaddr.
EINVAL (FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The kernel detected an inconsistency between the user-space
state at uaddr and the kernel state; that is, the kernel detected a waiter which
waits on uaddr via FUTEX_LOCK_PI (instead of FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI).
EINVAL (FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) An attempt was made to requeue a waiter to a futex other
than that specified by the matching FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI call for that waiter.
EINVAL (FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The val argument is not 1.
EINVAL Invalid argument.
ENFILE (FUTEX_FD) The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been
reached.
ENOMEM (FUTEX_LOCK_PI, FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI, FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The kernel could not
allocate memory to hold state information.
ENOSYS Invalid operation specified in futex_op.
ENOSYS The FUTEX_CLOCK_REALTIME option was specified in futex_op, but the accompanying
operation was neither FUTEX_WAIT, FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET, nor FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI.
ENOSYS (FUTEX_LOCK_PI, FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI, FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI, FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI,
FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI) A run-time check determined that the operation is not
available. The PI-futex operations are not implemented on all architectures and
are not supported on some CPU variants.
EPERM (FUTEX_LOCK_PI, FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI, FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The caller is not allowed
to attach itself to the futex at uaddr (for FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI: the futex at
uaddr2). (This may be caused by a state corruption in user space.)
EPERM (FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI) The caller does not own the lock represented by the futex word.
ESRCH (FUTEX_LOCK_PI, FUTEX_TRYLOCK_PI, FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The thread ID in the futex
word at uaddr does not exist.
ESRCH (FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI) The thread ID in the futex word at uaddr2 does not exist.
ETIMEDOUT
The operation in futex_op employed the timeout specified in timeout, and the
timeout expired before the operation completed.
VERSIONS
Futexes were first made available in a stable kernel release with Linux 2.6.0.
Initial futex support was merged in Linux 2.5.7 but with different semantics from what was
described above. A four-argument system call with the semantics described in this page
was introduced in Linux 2.5.40. A fifth argument was added in Linux 2.5.70, and a sixth
argument was added in Linux 2.6.7.
CONFORMING TO
This system call is Linux-specific.
NOTES
Glibc does not provide a wrapper for this system call; call it using syscall(2).
Several higher-level programming abstractions are implemented via futexes, including POSIX
semaphores and various POSIX threads synchronization mechanisms (mutexes, condition
variables, read-write locks, and barriers).
EXAMPLES
The program below demonstrates use of futexes in a program where a parent process and a
child process use a pair of futexes located inside a shared anonymous mapping to
synchronize access to a shared resource: the terminal. The two processes each write
nloops (a command-line argument that defaults to 5 if omitted) messages to the terminal
and employ a synchronization protocol that ensures that they alternate in writing
messages. Upon running this program we see output such as the following:
$ ./futex_demo
Parent (18534) 0
Child (18535) 0
Parent (18534) 1
Child (18535) 1
Parent (18534) 2
Child (18535) 2
Parent (18534) 3
Child (18535) 3
Parent (18534) 4
Child (18535) 4
Program source
/* futex_demo.c
Usage: futex_demo [nloops]
(Default: 5)
Demonstrate the use of futexes in a program where parent and child
use a pair of futexes located inside a shared anonymous mapping to
synchronize access to a shared resource: the terminal. The two
processes each write 'num-loops' messages to the terminal and employ
a synchronization protocol that ensures that they alternate in
writing messages.
*/
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <stdio.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdatomic.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <sys/syscall.h>
#include <linux/futex.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
#define errExit(msg) do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); \
} while (0)
static uint32_t *futex1, *futex2, *iaddr;
static int
futex(uint32_t *uaddr, int futex_op, uint32_t val,
const struct timespec *timeout, uint32_t *uaddr2, uint32_t val3)
{
return syscall(SYS_futex, uaddr, futex_op, val,
timeout, uaddr2, val3);
}
/* Acquire the futex pointed to by 'futexp': wait for its value to
become 1, and then set the value to 0. */
static void
fwait(uint32_t *futexp)
{
long s;
/* atomic_compare_exchange_strong(ptr, oldval, newval)
atomically performs the equivalent of:
if (*ptr == *oldval)
*ptr = newval;
It returns true if the test yielded true and *ptr was updated. */
while (1) {
/* Is the futex available? */
const uint32_t one = 1;
if (atomic_compare_exchange_strong(futexp, &one, 0))
break; /* Yes */
/* Futex is not available; wait */
s = futex(futexp, FUTEX_WAIT, 0, NULL, NULL, 0);
if (s == -1 && errno != EAGAIN)
errExit("futex-FUTEX_WAIT");
}
}
/* Release the futex pointed to by 'futexp': if the futex currently
has the value 0, set its value to 1 and the wake any futex waiters,
so that if the peer is blocked in fwait(), it can proceed. */
static void
fpost(uint32_t *futexp)
{
long s;
/* atomic_compare_exchange_strong() was described
in comments above */
const uint32_t zero = 0;
if (atomic_compare_exchange_strong(futexp, &zero, 1)) {
s = futex(futexp, FUTEX_WAKE, 1, NULL, NULL, 0);
if (s == -1)
errExit("futex-FUTEX_WAKE");
}
}
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
pid_t childPid;
int nloops;
setbuf(stdout, NULL);
nloops = (argc > 1) ? atoi(argv[1]) : 5;
/* Create a shared anonymous mapping that will hold the futexes.
Since the futexes are being shared between processes, we
subsequently use the "shared" futex operations (i.e., not the
ones suffixed "_PRIVATE") */
iaddr = mmap(NULL, sizeof(*iaddr) * 2, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_SHARED, -1, 0);
if (iaddr == MAP_FAILED)
errExit("mmap");
futex1 = &iaddr[0];
futex2 = &iaddr[1];
*futex1 = 0; /* State: unavailable */
*futex2 = 1; /* State: available */
/* Create a child process that inherits the shared anonymous
mapping */
childPid = fork();
if (childPid == -1)
errExit("fork");
if (childPid == 0) { /* Child */
for (int j = 0; j < nloops; j++) {
fwait(futex1);
printf("Child (%jd) %d\n", (intmax_t) getpid(), j);
fpost(futex2);
}
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
/* Parent falls through to here */
for (int j = 0; j < nloops; j++) {
fwait(futex2);
printf("Parent (%jd) %d\n", (intmax_t) getpid(), j);
fpost(futex1);
}
wait(NULL);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
SEE ALSO
get_robust_list(2), restart_syscall(2), pthread_mutexattr_getprotocol(3), futex(7),
sched(7)
The following kernel source files:
* Documentation/pi-futex.txt
* Documentation/futex-requeue-pi.txt
* Documentation/locking/rt-mutex.txt
* Documentation/locking/rt-mutex-design.txt
* Documentation/robust-futex-ABI.txt
Franke, H., Russell, R., and Kirwood, M., 2002. Fuss, Futexes and Furwocks: Fast
Userlevel Locking in Linux (from proceedings of the Ottawa Linux Symposium 2002),
⟨http://kernel.org/doc/ols/2002/ols2002-pages-479-495.pdf⟩
Hart, D., 2009. A futex overview and update, ⟨http://lwn.net/Articles/360699/⟩
Hart, D. and Guniguntala, D., 2009. Requeue-PI: Making Glibc Condvars PI-Aware (from
proceedings of the 2009 Real-Time Linux Workshop),
⟨http://lwn.net/images/conf/rtlws11/papers/proc/p10.pdf⟩
Drepper, U., 2011. Futexes Are Tricky, ⟨http://www.akkadia.org/drepper/futex.pdf⟩
Futex example library, futex-*.tar.bz2 at
⟨ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/⟩
COLOPHON
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