NAME

       mprotect - set protection on a region of memory

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/mman.h>

       int mprotect(void *addr, size_t len, int prot);

DESCRIPTION

       mprotect() changes protection for the calling process's memory page(s) containing any part
       of the address range in the interval [addr, addr+len-1].  addr must be aligned to  a  page
       boundary.

       If  the  calling  process tries to access memory in a manner that violates the protection,
       then the kernel generates a SIGSEGV signal for the process.

       prot is either PROT_NONE or a bitwise-or of the other values in the following list:

       PROT_NONE  The memory cannot be accessed at all.

       PROT_READ  The memory can be read.

       PROT_WRITE The memory can be modified.

       PROT_EXEC  The memory can be executed.

RETURN VALUE

       On success, mprotect() returns  zero.   On  error,  -1  is  returned,  and  errno  is  set
       appropriately.

ERRORS

       EACCES The  memory cannot be given the specified access.  This can happen, for example, if
              you mmap(2) a file to which you have read-only access, then ask mprotect() to  mark
              it PROT_WRITE.

       EINVAL addr is not a valid pointer, or not a multiple of the system page size.

       ENOMEM Internal kernel structures could not be allocated.

       ENOMEM Addresses  in the range [addr, addr+len-1] are invalid for the address space of the
              process, or specify one or more pages that are not mapped.  (Before kernel  2.4.19,
              the error EFAULT was incorrectly produced for these cases.)

       ENOMEM Changing  the  protection  of  a  memory region would result in the total number of
              mappings  with  distinct  attributes  (e.g.,  read  versus  read/write  protection)
              exceeding  the  allowed  maximum.   (For  example, making the protection of a range
              PROT_READ in the middle of a region  currently  protected  as  PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE
              would result in three mappings: two read/write mappings at each end and a read-only
              mapping in the middle.)

CONFORMING TO

       POSIX.1-2001,  POSIX.1-2008,  SVr4.   POSIX  says  that  the  behavior  of  mprotect()  is
       unspecified if it is applied to a region of memory that was not obtained via mmap(2).

NOTES

       On Linux it is always permissible to call mprotect() on any address in a process's address
       space (except for the kernel vsyscall area).  In particular  it  can  be  used  to  change
       existing code mappings to be writable.

       Whether   PROT_EXEC   has  any  effect  different  from  PROT_READ  depends  on  processor
       architecture, kernel version, and process state.   If  READ_IMPLIES_EXEC  is  set  in  the
       process's personality flags (see personality(2)), specifying PROT_READ will implicitly add
       PROT_EXEC.

       On some hardware architectures (e.g., i386), PROT_WRITE implies PROT_READ.

       POSIX.1 says that an implementation may permit access other than that specified  in  prot,
       but  at  a  minimum  can  allow write access only if PROT_WRITE has been set, and must not
       allow any access if PROT_NONE has been set.

EXAMPLE

       The program below allocates four pages of memory, makes the third  of  these  pages  read-
       only,  and  then  executes a loop that walks upward through the allocated region modifying
       bytes.

       An example of what we might see when running the program is the following:

           $ ./a.out
           Start of region:        0x804c000
           Got SIGSEGV at address: 0x804e000

   Program source

       #include <unistd.h>
       #include <signal.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <malloc.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <errno.h>
       #include <sys/mman.h>

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

       static char *buffer;

       static void
       handler(int sig, siginfo_t *si, void *unused)
       {
           printf("Got SIGSEGV at address: 0x%lx\n",
                   (long) si->si_addr);
           exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
       }

       int
       main(int argc, char *argv[])
       {
           char *p;
           int pagesize;
           struct sigaction sa;

           sa.sa_flags = SA_SIGINFO;
           sigemptyset(&sa.sa_mask);
           sa.sa_sigaction = handler;
           if (sigaction(SIGSEGV, &sa, NULL) == -1)
               handle_error("sigaction");

           pagesize = sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE);
           if (pagesize == -1)
               handle_error("sysconf");

           /* Allocate a buffer aligned on a page boundary;
              initial protection is PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE */

           buffer = memalign(pagesize, 4 * pagesize);
           if (buffer == NULL)
               handle_error("memalign");

           printf("Start of region:        0x%lx\n", (long) buffer);

           if (mprotect(buffer + pagesize * 2, pagesize,
                       PROT_READ) == -1)
               handle_error("mprotect");

           for (p = buffer ; ; )
               *(p++) = 'a';

           printf("Loop completed\n");     /* Should never happen */
           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO

       mmap(2), sysconf(3)

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 4.04 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 http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.