restart_syscall(2) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | STANDARDS | HISTORY | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

restart_syscall(2)         System Calls Manual         restart_syscall(2)

NAME         top

       restart_syscall - restart a system call after interruption by a
       stop signal

SYNOPSIS         top

       long restart_syscall(void);

       Note: There is no glibc wrapper for this system call; see NOTES.

DESCRIPTION         top

       The restart_syscall() system call is used to restart certain
       system calls after a process that was stopped by a signal (e.g.,
       SIGSTOP or SIGTSTP) is later resumed after receiving a SIGCONT
       signal.  This system call is designed only for internal use by the
       kernel.

       restart_syscall() is used for restarting only those system calls
       that, when restarted, should adjust their time-related parameters—
       namely poll(2) (since Linux 2.6.24), nanosleep(2) (since Linux
       2.6), clock_nanosleep(2) (since Linux 2.6), and futex(2), when
       employed with the FUTEX_WAIT (since Linux 2.6.22) and
       FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET (since Linux 2.6.31) operations.
       restart_syscall() restarts the interrupted system call with a time
       argument that is suitably adjusted to account for the time that
       has already elapsed (including the time where the process was
       stopped by a signal).  Without the restart_syscall() mechanism,
       restarting these system calls would not correctly deduct the
       already elapsed time when the process continued execution.

RETURN VALUE         top

       The return value of restart_syscall() is the return value of
       whatever system call is being restarted.

ERRORS         top

       errno is set as per the errors for whatever system call is being
       restarted by restart_syscall().

STANDARDS         top

       Linux.

HISTORY         top

       Linux 2.6.

NOTES         top

       There is no glibc wrapper for this system call, because it is
       intended for use only by the kernel and should never be called by
       applications.

       The kernel uses restart_syscall() to ensure that when a system
       call is restarted after a process has been stopped by a signal and
       then resumed by SIGCONT, then the time that the process spent in
       the stopped state is counted against the timeout interval
       specified in the original system call.  In the case of system
       calls that take a timeout argument and automatically restart after
       a stop signal plus SIGCONT, but which do not have the
       restart_syscall() mechanism built in, then, after the process
       resumes execution, the time that the process spent in the stop
       state is not counted against the timeout value.  Notable examples
       of system calls that suffer this problem are ppoll(2), select(2),
       and pselect(2).

       From user space, the operation of restart_syscall() is largely
       invisible: to the process that made the system call that is
       restarted, it appears as though that system call executed and
       returned in the usual fashion.

SEE ALSO         top

       sigaction(2), sigreturn(2), signal(7)

COLOPHON         top

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Linux man-pages 6.10            2024-05-02             restart_syscall(2)

Pages that refer to this page: lsfd(1)clock_nanosleep(2)futex(2)nanosleep(2)poll(2)ptrace(2)select(2)sigaction(2)sigreturn(2)syscalls(2)signal(7)