Ubuntu Manpage: shmat, shmdt - System V shared memory operations

NAME

       shmat, shmdt - System V shared memory operations

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/shm.h>

       void *shmat(int shmid, const void *shmaddr, int shmflg);

       int shmdt(const void *shmaddr);

DESCRIPTION

shmat()
shmat() attaches the System V shared memory segment identified by shmid to the address
space of the calling process. The attaching address is specified by shmaddr with one of
the following criteria:

* If shmaddr is NULL, the system chooses a suitable (unused) address at which to attach
the segment.

* If shmaddr isn't NULL and SHM_RND is specified in shmflg, the attach occurs at the
address equal to shmaddr rounded down to the nearest multiple of SHMLBA.

* Otherwise, shmaddr must be a page-aligned address at which the attach occurs.

In addition to SHM_RND, the following flags may be specified in the shmflg bit-mask
argument:

SHM_EXEC (Linux-specific; since Linux 2.6.9)
Allow the contents of the segment to be executed. The caller must have execute
permission on the segment.

SHM_RDONLY
Attach the segment for read-only access. The process must have read permission for
the segment. If this flag is not specified, the segment is attached for read and
write access, and the process must have read and write permission for the segment.
There is no notion of a write-only shared memory segment.

SHM_REMAP (Linux-specific)
This flag specifies that the mapping of the segment should replace any existing
mapping in the range starting at shmaddr and continuing for the size of the
segment. (Normally, an EINVAL error would result if a mapping already exists in
this address range.) In this case, shmaddr must not be NULL.

The brk(2) value of the calling process is not altered by the attach. The segment will
automatically be detached at process exit. The same segment may be attached as a read and
as a read-write one, and more than once, in the process's address space.

A successful shmat() call updates the members of the shmid_ds structure (see shmctl(2))
associated with the shared memory segment as follows:

shm_atime is set to the current time.

shm_lpid is set to the process-ID of the calling process.

shm_nattch is incremented by one.

shmdt()
shmdt() detaches the shared memory segment located at the address specified by shmaddr
from the address space of the calling process. The to-be-detached segment must be
currently attached with shmaddr equal to the value returned by the attaching shmat() call.

On a successful shmdt() call, the system updates the members of the shmid_ds structure
associated with the shared memory segment as follows:

shm_dtime is set to the current time.

shm_lpid is set to the process-ID of the calling process.

shm_nattch is decremented by one. If it becomes 0 and the segment is marked for
deletion, the segment is deleted.

RETURN VALUE

       On success, shmat() returns the address of the attached shared memory segment;  on  error,
       (void *) -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the cause of the error.

       On  success,  shmdt() returns 0; on error -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the
       cause of the error.

ERRORS

       When shmat() fails, errno is set to one of the following:

       EACCES The calling process does not have the required permissions for the requested attach
              type, and does not have the CAP_IPC_OWNER capability.

       EIDRM  shmid points to a removed identifier.

       EINVAL Invalid  shmid  value,  unaligned  (i.e.,  not  page-aligned  and  SHM_RND  was not
              specified) or invalid shmaddr  value,  or  can't  attach  segment  at  shmaddr,  or
              SHM_REMAP was specified and shmaddr was NULL.

       ENOMEM Could not allocate memory for the descriptor or for the page tables.

       When shmdt() fails, errno is set as follows:

       EINVAL There  is  no shared memory segment attached at shmaddr; or, shmaddr is not aligned
              on a page boundary.

CONFORMING TO

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

       In SVID 3 (or perhaps earlier), the type of the shmaddr argument was changed  from  char *
       into const void *, and the returned type of shmat() from char * into void *.

NOTES

After a fork(2), the child inherits the attached shared memory segments.

After an execve(2), all attached shared memory segments are detached from the process.

Upon _exit(2), all attached shared memory segments are detached from the process.

Using shmat() with shmaddr equal to NULL is the preferred, portable way of attaching a
shared memory segment. Be aware that the shared memory segment attached in this way may
be attached at different addresses in different processes. Therefore, any pointers
maintained within the shared memory must be made relative (typically to the starting
address of the segment), rather than absolute.

On Linux, it is possible to attach a shared memory segment even if it is already marked to
be deleted. However, POSIX.1 does not specify this behavior and many other
implementations do not support it.

The following system parameter affects shmat():

SHMLBA Segment low boundary address multiple. When explicitly specifying an attach
address in a call to shmat(), the caller should ensure that the address is a
multiple of this value. This is necessary on some architectures, in order either
to ensure good CPU cache performance or to ensure that different attaches of the
same segment have consistent views within the CPU cache. SHMLBA is normally some
multiple of the system page size (on many Linux architectures, it is the same as
the system page size).

The implementation places no intrinsic per-process limit on the number of shared memory
segments (SHMSEG).

COLOPHON

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