get_robust_list(2) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | VERSIONS | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

get_robust_list(2)         System Calls Manual         get_robust_list(2)

NAME         top

       get_robust_list, set_robust_list - get/set list of robust futexes

LIBRARY         top

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <linux/futex.h>   /* Definition of struct robust_list_head */
       #include <sys/syscall.h>   /* Definition of SYS_* constants */
       #include <unistd.h>

       long syscall(SYS_get_robust_list, int pid,
                    struct robust_list_head **head_ptr, size_t *sizep);
       long syscall(SYS_set_robust_list,
                    struct robust_list_head *head, size_t size);

       Note: glibc provides no wrappers for these system calls,
       necessitating the use of syscall(2).

DESCRIPTION         top

       These system calls deal with per-thread robust futex lists.  These
       lists are managed in user space: the kernel knows only about the
       location of the head of the list.  A thread can inform the kernel
       of the location of its robust futex list using set_robust_list().
       The address of a thread's robust futex list can be obtained using
       get_robust_list().

       The purpose of the robust futex list is to ensure that if a thread
       accidentally fails to unlock a futex before terminating or calling
       execve(2), another thread that is waiting on that futex is
       notified that the former owner of the futex has died.  This
       notification consists of two pieces: the FUTEX_OWNER_DIED bit is
       set in the futex word, and the kernel performs a futex(2)
       FUTEX_WAKE operation on one of the threads waiting on the futex.

       The get_robust_list() system call returns the head of the robust
       futex list of the thread whose thread ID is specified in pid.  If
       pid is 0, the head of the list for the calling thread is returned.
       The list head is stored in the location pointed to by head_ptr.
       The size of the object pointed to by **head_ptr is stored in
       sizep.

       Permission to employ get_robust_list() is governed by a ptrace
       access mode PTRACE_MODE_READ_REALCREDS check; see ptrace(2).

       The set_robust_list() system call requests the kernel to record
       the head of the list of robust futexes owned by the calling
       thread.  The head argument is the list head to record.  The size
       argument should be sizeof(*head).

RETURN VALUE         top

       The set_robust_list() and get_robust_list() system calls return
       zero when the operation is successful, an error code otherwise.

ERRORS         top

       The set_robust_list() system call can fail with the following
       error:

       EINVAL size does not equal sizeof(struct robust_list_head).

       The get_robust_list() system call can fail with the following
       errors:

       EFAULT The head of the robust futex list can't be stored at the
              location head.

       EPERM  The calling process does not have permission to see the
              robust futex list of the thread with the thread ID pid, and
              does not have the CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability.

       ESRCH  No thread with the thread ID pid could be found.

VERSIONS         top

       These system calls were added in Linux 2.6.17.

NOTES         top

       These system calls are not needed by normal applications.

       A thread can have only one robust futex list; therefore
       applications that wish to use this functionality should use the
       robust mutexes provided by glibc.

       In the initial implementation, a thread waiting on a futex was
       notified that the owner had died only if the owner terminated.
       Starting with Linux 2.6.28, notification was extended to include
       the case where the owner performs an execve(2).

       The thread IDs mentioned in the main text are kernel thread IDs of
       the kind returned by clone(2) and gettid(2).

SEE ALSO         top

       futex(2), pthread_mutexattr_setrobust(3)

       Documentation/robust-futexes.txt and
       Documentation/robust-futex-ABI.txt in the Linux kernel source tree

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the man-pages (Linux kernel and C library
       user-space interface documentation) project.  Information about
       the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTING⟩.
       This page was obtained from the tarball man-pages-6.10.tar.gz
       fetched from
       ⟨https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/⟩ on
       2025-02-02.  If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML
       version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-
       to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
       improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which is not
       part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Linux man-pages 6.10            2024-11-17             get_robust_list(2)

Pages that refer to this page: execve(2)futex(2)gettid(2)ptrace(2)syscalls(2)exit(3)pthread_mutexattr_setrobust(3)capabilities(7)futex(7)