Ubuntu Manpage: sd_listen_fds, sd_listen_fds_with_names, SD_LISTEN_FDS_START

Provided by: libsystemd-dev_256.5-2ubuntu3.1_amd64

NAME

       sd_listen_fds, sd_listen_fds_with_names, SD_LISTEN_FDS_START - Check for file descriptors
       passed by the system manager

SYNOPSIS

       #include <systemd/sd-daemon.h>

       #define SD_LISTEN_FDS_START 3

       int sd_listen_fds(int unset_environment);

       int sd_listen_fds_with_names(int unset_environment, char*** names);

DESCRIPTION

sd_listen_fds() may be invoked by a daemon to check for file descriptors passed by the
service manager as part of the socket-based activation and file descriptor store logic. It
returns the number of received file descriptors. If no file descriptors have been
received, zero is returned. The first file descriptor may be found at file descriptor
number 3 (i.e. SD_LISTEN_FDS_START), the remaining descriptors follow at 4, 5, 6, ..., if
any.

The file descriptors passed this way may be closed at will by the processes receiving
them: it's up to the processes themselves to close them after use or whether to leave them
open until the process exits (in which case the kernel closes them automatically). Note
that the file descriptors received by daemons are duplicates of the file descriptors the
service manager originally allocated and bound and of which it continuously keeps a copy
(except if Accept=yes is used). This means any socket option changes and other changes
made to the sockets will be visible to the service manager too. Most importantly this
means it's generally not a good idea to invoke shutdown(2) on such sockets, since it will
shut down communication on the file descriptor the service manager holds for the same
socket too. Also note that if a daemon is restarted (and its associated sockets are not)
it will receive file descriptors to the very same sockets as the earlier invocations, thus
all socket options applied then will still apply.

If a daemon receives more than one file descriptor, they will be passed in the same order
as configured in the systemd socket unit file (see systemd.socket(5) for details) — if
there's only one such file (see below). Nonetheless, it is recommended to verify the
correct socket types before using them. To simplify this checking, the functions
sd_is_fifo(3), sd_is_socket(3), sd_is_socket_inet(3), sd_is_socket_unix(3) are provided.
In order to maximize flexibility, it is recommended to make these checks as loose as
possible without allowing incorrect setups. i.e. often, the actual port number a socket is
bound to matters little for the service to work, hence it should not be verified. On the
other hand, whether a socket is a datagram or stream socket matters a lot for the most
common program logics and should be checked.

This function call will set the FD_CLOEXEC flag for all passed file descriptors to avoid
further inheritance to children of the calling process.

If multiple socket units activate the same service, the order of the file descriptors
passed to its main process is undefined. If additional file descriptors have been passed
to the service manager using sd_pid_notify_with_fds(3)'s "FDSTORE=1" messages, these file
descriptors are passed last, in arbitrary order, and with duplicates removed.

If the unset_environment parameter is non-zero, sd_listen_fds() will unset the
$LISTEN_FDS, $LISTEN_PID and $LISTEN_FDNAMES environment variables before returning
(regardless of whether the function call itself succeeded or not). Further calls to
sd_listen_fds() will then return zero, but the variables are no longer inherited by child
processes.

sd_listen_fds_with_names() is like sd_listen_fds(), but optionally also returns an array
of strings with identification names for the passed file descriptors, if that is available
and the names parameter is non-NULL. This information is read from the $LISTEN_FDNAMES
variable, which may contain a colon-separated list of names. For socket-activated
services, these names may be configured with the FileDescriptorName= setting in socket
unit files, see systemd.socket(5) for details. For file descriptors pushed into the file
descriptor store (see above), the name is set via the FDNAME= field transmitted via
sd_pid_notify_with_fds(). The primary use case for these names are services which accept a
variety of file descriptors which are not recognizable with functions like sd_is_socket()
alone, and thus require identification via a name. It is recommended to rely on named file
descriptors only if identification via sd_is_socket() and related calls is not sufficient.
Note that the names used are not unique in any way. The returned array of strings has as
many entries as file descriptors have been received, plus a final NULL pointer terminating
the array. The caller needs to free the array itself and each of its elements with libc's
free() call after use. If the names parameter is NULL, the call is entirely equivalent to
sd_listen_fds().

Under specific conditions, the following automatic file descriptor names are returned:

Table 1. Special names
┌─────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┐
│Name │ Description │
├─────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│"unknown" │ The process received no name for │
│ │ the specific file descriptor │
│ │ from the service manager. │
├─────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│"stored" │ The file descriptor originates │
│ │ in the service manager's │
│ │ per-service file descriptor │
│ │ store, and the FDNAME= field was │
│ │ absent when the file descriptor │
│ │ was submitted to the service │
│ │ manager. │
├─────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤
│"connection" │ The service was activated in │
│ │ per-connection style using │
│ │ Accept=yes in the socket unit │
│ │ file, and the file descriptor is │
│ │ the connection socket. │
└─────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┘

For further information on the file descriptor store see the File Descriptor Store[1]
overview.

RETURN VALUE

       On failure, these calls returns a negative errno-style error code. If
       $LISTEN_FDS/$LISTEN_PID was not set or was not correctly set for this daemon and hence no
       file descriptors were received, 0 is returned. Otherwise, the number of file descriptors
       passed is returned. The application may find them starting with file descriptor
       SD_LISTEN_FDS_START, i.e. file descriptor 3.

NOTES

       Functions described here are available as a shared library, which can be compiled against
       and linked to with the libsystemd pkg-config(1) file.

       The code described here uses getenv(3), which is declared to be not multi-thread-safe.
       This means that the code calling the functions described here must not call setenv(3) from
       a parallel thread. It is recommended to only do calls to setenv() from an early phase of
       the program when no other threads have been started.

       Internally, sd_listen_fds() checks whether the $LISTEN_PID environment variable equals the
       daemon PID. If not, it returns immediately. Otherwise, it parses the number passed in the
       $LISTEN_FDS environment variable, then sets the FD_CLOEXEC flag for the parsed number of
       file descriptors starting from SD_LISTEN_FDS_START. Finally, it returns the parsed number.
       sd_listen_fds_with_names() does the same but also parses $LISTEN_FDNAMES if set.

       These functions are not designed for services that specify StandardInput=socket as the
       $LISTEN_FDS variable is not set in their environment.

ENVIRONMENT

       $LISTEN_PID, $LISTEN_FDS, $LISTEN_FDNAMES
           Set by the service manager for supervised processes that use socket-based activation.
           This environment variable specifies the data sd_listen_fds() and
           sd_listen_fds_with_names() parses. See above for details.

HISTORY

       sd_listen_fds_with_names() was added in version 227.

NOTES

        1. File Descriptor Store
           https://systemd.io/FILE_DESCRIPTOR_STORE

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

RETURN VALUE

NOTES

ENVIRONMENT

HISTORY

SEE ALSO

NOTES