Provided by: manpages-dev_5.13-1_all bug

NAME

       mmap, munmap - map or unmap files or devices into memory

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/mman.h>

       void *mmap(void *addr, size_t length, int prot, int flags,
                  int fd, off_t offset);
       int munmap(void *addr, size_t length);

       See NOTES for information on feature test macro requirements.

DESCRIPTION

       mmap()  creates  a  new  mapping in the virtual address space of the calling process.  The
       starting address for the new mapping is specified in addr.  The length argument  specifies
       the length of the mapping (which must be greater than 0).

       If addr is NULL, then the kernel chooses the (page-aligned) address at which to create the
       mapping; this is the most portable method of creating a new mapping.  If addr is not NULL,
       then  the kernel takes it as a hint about where to place the mapping; on Linux, the kernel
       will pick a nearby page boundary (but always above or equal  to  the  value  specified  by
       /proc/sys/vm/mmap_min_addr)  and  attempt to create the mapping there.  If another mapping
       already exists there, the kernel picks a new address that may or may  not  depend  on  the
       hint.  The address of the new mapping is returned as the result of the call.

       The  contents  of  a  file  mapping (as opposed to an anonymous mapping; see MAP_ANONYMOUS
       below), are initialized using length bytes starting at offset offset in the file (or other
       object) referred to by the file descriptor fd.  offset must be a multiple of the page size
       as returned by sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE).

       After the mmap() call has returned, the file descriptor, fd,  can  be  closed  immediately
       without invalidating the mapping.

       The  prot  argument  describes  the desired memory protection of the mapping (and must not
       conflict with the open mode of the file).  It is either PROT_NONE or the bitwise OR of one
       or more of the following flags:

       PROT_EXEC  Pages may be executed.

       PROT_READ  Pages may be read.

       PROT_WRITE Pages may be written.

       PROT_NONE  Pages may not be accessed.

   The flags argument
       The  flags  argument  determines  whether  updates  to  the  mapping  are visible to other
       processes mapping the same  region,  and  whether  updates  are  carried  through  to  the
       underlying  file.   This  behavior is determined by including exactly one of the following
       values in flags:

       MAP_SHARED
              Share this mapping.  Updates to the mapping are visible to other processes  mapping
              the  same  region, and (in the case of file-backed mappings) are carried through to
              the underlying file.  (To precisely control when updates are carried through to the
              underlying file requires the use of msync(2).)

       MAP_SHARED_VALIDATE (since Linux 4.15)
              This  flag provides the same behavior as MAP_SHARED except that MAP_SHARED mappings
              ignore unknown flags  in  flags.   By  contrast,  when  creating  a  mapping  using
              MAP_SHARED_VALIDATE,  the  kernel verifies all passed flags are known and fails the
              mapping with the error EOPNOTSUPP for unknown flags.  This  mapping  type  is  also
              required to be able to use some mapping flags (e.g., MAP_SYNC).

       MAP_PRIVATE
              Create  a private copy-on-write mapping.  Updates to the mapping are not visible to
              other processes mapping  the  same  file,  and  are  not  carried  through  to  the
              underlying  file.   It  is  unspecified  whether changes made to the file after the
              mmap() call are visible in the mapped region.

       Both  MAP_SHARED  and  MAP_PRIVATE  are  described  in  POSIX.1-2001   and   POSIX.1-2008.
       MAP_SHARED_VALIDATE is a Linux extension.

       In addition, zero or more of the following values can be ORed in flags:

       MAP_32BIT (since Linux 2.4.20, 2.6)
              Put the mapping into the first 2 Gigabytes of the process address space.  This flag
              is supported only on x86-64, for 64-bit programs.  It was  added  to  allow  thread
              stacks  to  be  allocated  somewhere  in the first 2 GB of memory, so as to improve
              context-switch  performance  on  some  early  64-bit  processors.   Modern   x86-64
              processors  no  longer  have  this  performance problem, so use of this flag is not
              required on those systems.  The MAP_32BIT flag is ignored when MAP_FIXED is set.

       MAP_ANON
              Synonym for MAP_ANONYMOUS; provided for compatibility with other implementations.

       MAP_ANONYMOUS
              The mapping is not backed by any file; its contents are initialized to  zero.   The
              fd  argument  is  ignored;  however,  some  implementations  require fd to be -1 if
              MAP_ANONYMOUS (or MAP_ANON) is specified, and portable applications  should  ensure
              this.  The offset argument should be zero.  The use of MAP_ANONYMOUS in conjunction
              with MAP_SHARED is supported on Linux only since kernel 2.4.

       MAP_DENYWRITE
              This flag is ignored.  (Long ago—Linux 2.0 and earlier—it signaled that attempts to
              write  to  the  underlying file should fail with ETXTBSY.  But this was a source of
              denial-of-service attacks.)

       MAP_EXECUTABLE
              This flag is ignored.

       MAP_FILE
              Compatibility flag.  Ignored.

       MAP_FIXED
              Don't interpret addr as a hint: place the mapping at exactly  that  address.   addr
              must  be  suitably  aligned:  for most architectures a multiple of the page size is
              sufficient; however, some architectures may impose additional restrictions.  If the
              memory  region  specified  by  addr  and  length  overlaps  pages  of  any existing
              mapping(s), then the overlapped part of the existing mapping(s) will be  discarded.
              If the specified address cannot be used, mmap() will fail.

              Software  that  aspires  to  be  portable  should use the MAP_FIXED flag with care,
              keeping in mind that the exact layout of a process's memory mappings is allowed  to
              change  significantly  between  kernel  versions, C library versions, and operating
              system releases.  Carefully read the discussion of this flag in NOTES!

       MAP_FIXED_NOREPLACE (since Linux 4.17)
              This flag provides behavior that is similar to MAP_FIXED with respect to  the  addr
              enforcement,  but  differs in that MAP_FIXED_NOREPLACE never clobbers a preexisting
              mapped range.  If the requested range would collide with an existing mapping,  then
              this call fails with the error EEXIST.  This flag can therefore be used as a way to
              atomically (with respect to other threads) attempt to map  an  address  range:  one
              thread will succeed; all others will report failure.

              Note  that  older  kernels which do not recognize the MAP_FIXED_NOREPLACE flag will
              typically (upon detecting a collision with a preexisting mapping) fall  back  to  a
              "non-MAP_FIXED"  type  of  behavior:  they will return an address that is different
              from the requested address.  Therefore, backward-compatible software  should  check
              the returned address against the requested address.

       MAP_GROWSDOWN
              This  flag  is  used  for stacks.  It indicates to the kernel virtual memory system
              that the mapping should extend downward in memory.  The return address is one  page
              lower  than  the  memory  area  that  is  actually created in the process's virtual
              address space.  Touching an address in the "guard"  page  below  the  mapping  will
              cause the mapping to grow by a page.  This growth can be repeated until the mapping
              grows to within a page of the high end of the next lower mapping,  at  which  point
              touching the "guard" page will result in a SIGSEGV signal.

       MAP_HUGETLB (since Linux 2.6.32)
              Allocate  the  mapping  using  "huge"  pages.   See  the  Linux  kernel source file
              Documentation/admin-guide/mm/hugetlbpage.rst for further information,  as  well  as
              NOTES, below.

       MAP_HUGE_2MB, MAP_HUGE_1GB (since Linux 3.8)
              Used  in  conjunction  with  MAP_HUGETLB  to  select alternative hugetlb page sizes
              (respectively, 2 MB and 1 GB) on systems that support multiple hugetlb page sizes.

              More generally, the desired huge page size can be configured by encoding the base-2
              logarithm  of  the  desired page size in the six bits at the offset MAP_HUGE_SHIFT.
              (A value of zero in this bit field provides the default huge page size; the default
              huge   page   size  can  be  discovered  via  the  Hugepagesize  field  exposed  by
              /proc/meminfo.)  Thus, the above two constants are defined as:

                  #define MAP_HUGE_2MB    (21 << MAP_HUGE_SHIFT)
                  #define MAP_HUGE_1GB    (30 << MAP_HUGE_SHIFT)

              The range of huge page sizes that are supported by the system can be discovered  by
              listing the subdirectories in /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages.

       MAP_LOCKED (since Linux 2.5.37)
              Mark  the  mapped  region  to  be  locked  in  the  same  way  as  mlock(2).   This
              implementation will try to populate (prefault) the whole range but the mmap()  call
              doesn't  fail with ENOMEM if this fails.  Therefore major faults might happen later
              on.  So the semantic is not as strong as mlock(2).   One  should  use  mmap()  plus
              mlock(2)  when  major  faults  are  not  acceptable after the initialization of the
              mapping.  The MAP_LOCKED flag is ignored in older kernels.

       MAP_NONBLOCK (since Linux 2.5.46)
              This flag is meaningful only in conjunction with MAP_POPULATE.  Don't perform read-
              ahead:  create  page tables entries only for pages that are already present in RAM.
              Since Linux 2.6.23, this flag causes MAP_POPULATE to  do  nothing.   One  day,  the
              combination of MAP_POPULATE and MAP_NONBLOCK may be reimplemented.

       MAP_NORESERVE
              Do  not  reserve swap space for this mapping.  When swap space is reserved, one has
              the guarantee that it is possible to modify the mapping.  When swap  space  is  not
              reserved  one  might  get  SIGSEGV upon a write if no physical memory is available.
              See also the discussion of the file /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory in proc(5).   In
              kernels before 2.6, this flag had effect only for private writable mappings.

       MAP_POPULATE (since Linux 2.5.46)
              Populate  (prefault)  page  tables  for a mapping.  For a file mapping, this causes
              read-ahead on the file.  This will help to reduce blocking on  page  faults  later.
              The  mmap()  call doesn't fail if the mapping cannot be populated (for example, due
              to limitations on  the  number  of  mapped  huge  pages  when  using  MAP_HUGETLB).
              MAP_POPULATE is supported for private mappings only since Linux 2.6.23.

       MAP_STACK (since Linux 2.6.27)
              Allocate the mapping at an address suitable for a process or thread stack.

              This  flag  is  currently  a  no-op  on  Linux.   However,  by employing this flag,
              applications can ensure that they transparently  obtain  support  if  the  flag  is
              implemented  in the future.  Thus, it is used in the glibc threading implementation
              to allow for the fact that some architectures may (later) require special treatment
              for  stack  allocations.   A  further  reason  to  employ this flag is portability:
              MAP_STACK exists (and has an effect) on some  other  systems  (e.g.,  some  of  the
              BSDs).

       MAP_SYNC (since Linux 4.15)
              This  flag is available only with the MAP_SHARED_VALIDATE mapping type; mappings of
              type MAP_SHARED will silently ignore this flag.  This flag is  supported  only  for
              files  supporting  DAX  (direct  mapping  of  persistent memory).  For other files,
              creating a mapping with this flag results in an EOPNOTSUPP error.

              Shared file mappings with this flag provide the guarantee that while some memory is
              mapped writable in the address space of the process, it will be visible in the same
              file at the same  offset  even  after  the  system  crashes  or  is  rebooted.   In
              conjunction  with  the  use of appropriate CPU instructions, this provides users of
              such mappings with a more efficient way of making data modifications persistent.

       MAP_UNINITIALIZED (since Linux 2.6.33)
              Don't clear anonymous pages.  This flag  is  intended  to  improve  performance  on
              embedded  devices.  This flag is honored only if the kernel was configured with the
              CONFIG_MMAP_ALLOW_UNINITIALIZED option.  Because of the security implications, that
              option  is  normally  enabled only on embedded devices (i.e., devices where one has
              complete control of the contents of user memory).

       Of the above  flags,  only  MAP_FIXED  is  specified  in  POSIX.1-2001  and  POSIX.1-2008.
       However, most systems also support MAP_ANONYMOUS (or its synonym MAP_ANON).

   munmap()
       The  munmap() system call deletes the mappings for the specified address range, and causes
       further references to addresses within the range to generate  invalid  memory  references.
       The  region  is  also automatically unmapped when the process is terminated.  On the other
       hand, closing the file descriptor does not unmap the region.

       The address addr must be a multiple of the page size (but length need not be).  All  pages
       containing  a part of the indicated range are unmapped, and subsequent references to these
       pages will generate SIGSEGV.  It is not an error if the indicated range does  not  contain
       any mapped pages.

RETURN VALUE

       On  success,  mmap() returns a pointer to the mapped area.  On error, the value MAP_FAILED
       (that is, (void *) -1) is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

       On success, munmap() returns 0.  On failure, it returns -1, and errno is set  to  indicate
       the error (probably to EINVAL).

ERRORS

       EACCES A  file  descriptor refers to a non-regular file.  Or a file mapping was requested,
              but fd is not open for reading.  Or MAP_SHARED was requested and PROT_WRITE is set,
              but fd is not open in read/write (O_RDWR) mode.  Or PROT_WRITE is set, but the file
              is append-only.

       EAGAIN The file has been locked, or too much memory has been locked (see setrlimit(2)).

       EBADF  fd is not a valid file descriptor (and MAP_ANONYMOUS was not set).

       EEXIST MAP_FIXED_NOREPLACE was specified in flags, and  the  range  covered  by  addr  and
              length clashes with an existing mapping.

       EINVAL We  don't like addr, length, or offset (e.g., they are too large, or not aligned on
              a page boundary).

       EINVAL (since Linux 2.6.12) length was 0.

       EINVAL flags contained none of MAP_PRIVATE, MAP_SHARED, or MAP_SHARED_VALIDATE.

       ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been reached.

       ENODEV The underlying filesystem of the specified file does not support memory mapping.

       ENOMEM No memory is available.

       ENOMEM The process's maximum number of mappings would have been exceeded.  This error  can
              also  occur  for  munmap(),  when  unmapping  a region in the middle of an existing
              mapping, since this results in two smaller mappings on either side  of  the  region
              being unmapped.

       ENOMEM (since Linux 4.7) The process's RLIMIT_DATA limit, described in getrlimit(2), would
              have been exceeded.

       EOVERFLOW
              On 32-bit architecture together with the large file extension (i.e.,  using  64-bit
              off_t):  the  number  of pages used for length plus number of pages used for offset
              would overflow unsigned long (32 bits).

       EPERM  The prot argument asks for PROT_EXEC but the mapped area belongs to  a  file  on  a
              filesystem that was mounted no-exec.

       EPERM  The operation was prevented by a file seal; see fcntl(2).

       EPERM  The MAP_HUGETLB flag was specified, but the caller was not privileged (did not have
              the CAP_IPC_LOCK capability) and is not a member  of  the  sysctl_hugetlb_shm_group
              group; see the description of /proc/sys/vm/sysctl_hugetlb_shm_group in

       ETXTBSY
              MAP_DENYWRITE was set but the object specified by fd is open for writing.

       Use of a mapped region can result in these signals:

       SIGSEGV
              Attempted write into a region mapped as read-only.

       SIGBUS Attempted  access  to  a  page of the buffer that lies beyond the end of the mapped
              file.  For an  explanation  of  the  treatment  of  the  bytes  in  the  page  that
              corresponds  to  the  end of a mapped file that is not a multiple of the page size,
              see NOTES.

ATTRIBUTES

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

       ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
       │InterfaceAttributeValue   │
       ├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
       │mmap(), munmap()                                               │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
       └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘

CONFORMING TO

       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.4BSD.

       On  POSIX   systems   on   which   mmap(),   msync(2),   and   munmap()   are   available,
       _POSIX_MAPPED_FILES  is  defined  in  <unistd.h>  to  a  value  greater than 0.  (See also
       sysconf(3).)

NOTES

       Memory mapped by mmap() is preserved across fork(2), with the same attributes.

       A file is mapped in multiples of the page size.  For a file that is not a multiple of  the
       page  size,  the  remaining bytes in the partial page at the end of the mapping are zeroed
       when mapped, and modifications to that region are not written out to the file.  The effect
       of  changing  the size of the underlying file of a mapping on the pages that correspond to
       added or removed regions of the file is unspecified.

       On some  hardware  architectures  (e.g.,  i386),  PROT_WRITE  implies  PROT_READ.   It  is
       architecture  dependent  whether  PROT_READ  implies  PROT_EXEC or not.  Portable programs
       should always set PROT_EXEC if they intend to execute code in the new mapping.

       The portable way to create a mapping is to specify addr as 0 (NULL),  and  omit  MAP_FIXED
       from  flags.  In this case, the system chooses the address for the mapping; the address is
       chosen so as not to conflict with any existing  mapping,  and  will  not  be  0.   If  the
       MAP_FIXED  flag  is  specified,  and  addr  is 0 (NULL), then the mapped address will be 0
       (NULL).

       Certain flags constants are defined only if  suitable  feature  test  macros  are  defined
       (possibly  by  default):  _DEFAULT_SOURCE  with  glibc  2.19  or  later; or _BSD_SOURCE or
       _SVID_SOURCE in glibc  2.19  and  earlier.   (Employing  _GNU_SOURCE  also  suffices,  and
       requiring  that macro specifically would have been more logical, since these flags are all
       Linux-specific.)  The relevant  flags  are:  MAP_32BIT,  MAP_ANONYMOUS  (and  the  synonym
       MAP_ANON),    MAP_DENYWRITE,   MAP_EXECUTABLE,   MAP_FILE,   MAP_GROWSDOWN,   MAP_HUGETLB,
       MAP_LOCKED, MAP_NONBLOCK, MAP_NORESERVE, MAP_POPULATE, and MAP_STACK.

       An application can determine which pages of  a  mapping  are  currently  resident  in  the
       buffer/page cache using mincore(2).

   Using MAP_FIXED safely
       The  only  safe  use for MAP_FIXED is where the address range specified by addr and length
       was previously reserved  using  another  mapping;  otherwise,  the  use  of  MAP_FIXED  is
       hazardous  because  it  forcibly  removes  preexisting  mappings,  making  it  easy  for a
       multithreaded process to corrupt its own address space.

       For example, suppose that thread A looks through /proc/<pid>/maps in order  to  locate  an
       unused  address  range  that  it  can  map  using MAP_FIXED, while thread B simultaneously
       acquires part or all of that same address  range.   When  thread  A  subsequently  employs
       mmap(MAP_FIXED),  it  will effectively clobber the mapping that thread B created.  In this
       scenario, thread B need not create a mapping directly; simply making a library call  that,
       internally, uses dlopen(3) to load some other shared library, will suffice.  The dlopen(3)
       call will map the library into the  process's  address  space.   Furthermore,  almost  any
       library  call  may be implemented in a way that adds memory mappings to the address space,
       either with this technique, or by simply  allocating  memory.   Examples  include  brk(2),
       malloc(3), pthread_create(3), and the PAM libraries ⟨http://www.linux-pam.org⟩.

       Since  Linux  4.17,  a multithreaded program can use the MAP_FIXED_NOREPLACE flag to avoid
       the hazard described above when attempting to create a mapping at a fixed address that has
       not been reserved by a preexisting mapping.

   Timestamps changes for file-backed mappings
       For  file-backed  mappings,  the  st_atime field for the mapped file may be updated at any
       time between the mmap() and the corresponding unmapping; the first reference to  a  mapped
       page will update the field if it has not been already.

       The  st_ctime  and st_mtime field for a file mapped with PROT_WRITE and MAP_SHARED will be
       updated after a write to the mapped region, and before  a  subsequent  msync(2)  with  the
       MS_SYNC or MS_ASYNC flag, if one occurs.

   Huge page (Huge TLB) mappings
       For  mappings  that  employ  huge  pages, the requirements for the arguments of mmap() and
       munmap() differ somewhat from the requirements for mappings that  use  the  native  system
       page size.

       For  mmap(),  offset  must  be  a  multiple  of the underlying huge page size.  The system
       automatically aligns length to be a multiple of the underlying huge page size.

       For munmap(), addr, and length must both be a multiple of the underlying huge page size.

   C library/kernel differences
       This page  describes  the  interface  provided  by  the  glibc  mmap()  wrapper  function.
       Originally,  this function invoked a system call of the same name.  Since kernel 2.4, that
       system call has been superseded  by  mmap2(2),  and  nowadays  the  glibc  mmap()  wrapper
       function invokes mmap2(2) with a suitably adjusted value for offset.

BUGS

       On  Linux,  there  are  no  guarantees like those suggested above under MAP_NORESERVE.  By
       default, any process can be killed at any moment when the system runs out of memory.

       In kernels before 2.6.7, the MAP_POPULATE flag has effect only if  prot  is  specified  as
       PROT_NONE.

       SUSv3  specifies  that  mmap()  should  fail  if  length is 0.  However, in kernels before
       2.6.12, mmap() succeeded in this case: no mapping was created and the call returned  addr.
       Since kernel 2.6.12, mmap() fails with the error EINVAL for this case.

       POSIX  specifies that the system shall always zero fill any partial page at the end of the
       object and that system will never write any modification of the object beyond its end.  On
       Linux,  when  you  write  data  to such partial page after the end of the object, the data
       stays in the page cache even after the file is closed and unmapped  and  even  though  the
       data  is  never  written  to  the  file  itself,  subsequent mappings may see the modified
       content.  In some cases, this could be fixed by calling msync(2) before  the  unmap  takes
       place;  however,  this  doesn't work on tmpfs(5) (for example, when using the POSIX shared
       memory interface documented in shm_overview(7)).

EXAMPLES

       The following program prints part of the file specified in its first command-line argument
       to  standard  output.  The range of bytes to be printed is specified via offset and length
       values in the second and third command-line  arguments.   The  program  creates  a  memory
       mapping  of  the  required  pages of the file and then uses write(2) to output the desired
       bytes.

   Program source
       #include <sys/mman.h>
       #include <sys/stat.h>
       #include <fcntl.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <unistd.h>

       #define handle_error(msg) \
           do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0)

       int
       main(int argc, char *argv[])
       {
           char *addr;
           int fd;
           struct stat sb;
           off_t offset, pa_offset;
           size_t length;
           ssize_t s;

           if (argc < 3 || argc > 4) {
               fprintf(stderr, "%s file offset [length]\n", argv[0]);
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           fd = open(argv[1], O_RDONLY);
           if (fd == -1)
               handle_error("open");

           if (fstat(fd, &sb) == -1)           /* To obtain file size */
               handle_error("fstat");

           offset = atoi(argv[2]);
           pa_offset = offset & ~(sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE) - 1);
               /* offset for mmap() must be page aligned */

           if (offset >= sb.st_size) {
               fprintf(stderr, "offset is past end of file\n");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           if (argc == 4) {
               length = atoi(argv[3]);
               if (offset + length > sb.st_size)
                   length = sb.st_size - offset;
                       /* Can't display bytes past end of file */

           } else {    /* No length arg ==> display to end of file */
               length = sb.st_size - offset;
           }

           addr = mmap(NULL, length + offset - pa_offset, PROT_READ,
                       MAP_PRIVATE, fd, pa_offset);
           if (addr == MAP_FAILED)
               handle_error("mmap");

           s = write(STDOUT_FILENO, addr + offset - pa_offset, length);
           if (s != length) {
               if (s == -1)
                   handle_error("write");

               fprintf(stderr, "partial write");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           munmap(addr, length + offset - pa_offset);
           close(fd);

           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO

       ftruncate(2),   getpagesize(2),   memfd_create(2),   mincore(2),    mlock(2),    mmap2(2),
       mprotect(2),    mremap(2),    msync(2),   remap_file_pages(2),   setrlimit(2),   shmat(2),
       userfaultfd(2), shm_open(3), shm_overview(7)

       The   descriptions   of   the    following    files    in    proc(5):    /proc/[pid]/maps,
       /proc/[pid]/map_files, and /proc/[pid]/smaps.

       B.O. Gallmeister, POSIX.4, O'Reilly, pp. 128–129 and 389–391.

COLOPHON

       This  page  is  part of release 5.13 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the
       project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of  this  page,  can  be
       found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.