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FCNTL(2)                   Linux Programmer's Manual                  FCNTL(2)

NAME
       fcntl - manipulate file descriptor
SYNOPSIS
       #include <unistd.h>
       #include <fcntl.h>
       int fcntl(int fd, int cmd, ... /* arg */ );
DESCRIPTION
       fcntl() performs one of the operations described below on the open file
       descriptor fd.  The operation is determined by cmd.
       fcntl() can take an optional third argument.  Whether or not this argu-
       ment  is  required is determined by cmd.  The required argument type is
       indicated in parentheses after  each  cmd  name  (in  most  cases,  the
       required type is int, and we identify the argument using the name arg),
       or void is specified if the argument is not required.
   Duplicating a file descriptor
       F_DUPFD (int)
              Find the lowest numbered available file descriptor greater  than
              or  equal to arg and make it be a copy of fd.  This is different
              from dup2(2), which uses exactly the descriptor specified.
              On success, the new descriptor is returned.
              See dup(2) for further details.
       F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC (int; since Linux 2.6.24)
              As for F_DUPFD, but additionally set the close-on-exec flag  for
              the  duplicate  descriptor.  Specifying this flag permits a pro-
              gram to avoid an additional fcntl() F_SETFD operation to set the
              FD_CLOEXEC flag.  For an explanation of why this flag is useful,
              see the description of O_CLOEXEC in open(2).
   File descriptor flags
       The following commands manipulate the  flags  associated  with  a  file
       descriptor.   Currently, only one such flag is defined: FD_CLOEXEC, the
       close-on-exec flag.  If the FD_CLOEXEC bit is 0,  the  file  descriptor
       will remain open across an execve(2), otherwise it will be closed.
       F_GETFD (void)
              Read the file descriptor flags; arg is ignored.
       F_SETFD (int)
              Set the file descriptor flags to the value specified by arg.
   File status flags
       Each  open  file  description has certain associated status flags, ini-
       tialized by open(2) and possibly modified by fcntl().  Duplicated  file
       descriptors  (made with dup(2), fcntl(F_DUPFD), fork(2), etc.) refer to
       the same open file description, and thus share  the  same  file  status
       flags.
       The file status flags and their semantics are described in open(2).
       F_GETFL (void)
              Get  the  file  access  mode  and  the file status flags; arg is
              ignored.
       F_SETFL (int)
              Set the file status flags to the value specified by  arg.   File
              access mode (O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, O_RDWR) and file creation flags
              (i.e., O_CREAT, O_EXCL, O_NOCTTY, O_TRUNC) in arg  are  ignored.
              On  Linux  this  command  can change only the O_APPEND, O_ASYNC,
              O_DIRECT, O_NOATIME, and O_NONBLOCK flags.
   Advisory locking
       F_GETLK, F_SETLK and F_SETLKW are used to acquire,  release,  and  test
       for  the existence of record locks (also known as file-segment or file-
       region locks).  The third argument, lock, is a pointer to  a  structure
       that has at least the following fields (in unspecified order).
           struct flock {
               ...
               short l_type;    /* Type of lock: F_RDLCK,
                                   F_WRLCK, F_UNLCK */
               short l_whence;  /* How to interpret l_start:
                                   SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, SEEK_END */
               off_t l_start;   /* Starting offset for lock */
               off_t l_len;     /* Number of bytes to lock */
               pid_t l_pid;     /* PID of process blocking our lock
                                   (F_GETLK only) */
               ...
           };
       The  l_whence,  l_start, and l_len fields of this structure specify the
       range of bytes we wish to lock.  Bytes past the end of the file may  be
       locked, but not bytes before the start of the file.
       l_start  is  the starting offset for the lock, and is interpreted rela-
       tive to either: the start of the file (if l_whence  is  SEEK_SET);  the
       current  file  offset (if l_whence is SEEK_CUR); or the end of the file
       (if l_whence is SEEK_END).  In the final two cases, l_start  can  be  a
       negative  number  provided  the offset does not lie before the start of
       the file.
       l_len specifies the number of bytes to be locked.  If  l_len  is  posi-
       tive,  then  the  range  to  be  locked  covers bytes l_start up to and
       including l_start+l_len-1.  Specifying 0  for  l_len  has  the  special
       meaning:  lock all bytes starting at the location specified by l_whence
       and l_start through to the end of file, no matter how  large  the  file
       grows.
       POSIX.1-2001 allows (but does not require) an implementation to support
       a negative l_len value; if l_len is negative, the interval described by
       lock covers bytes l_start+l_len up to and including l_start-1.  This is
       supported by Linux since kernel versions 2.4.21 and 2.5.49.
       The l_type field can be used to place  a  read  (F_RDLCK)  or  a  write
       (F_WRLCK) lock on a file.  Any number of processes may hold a read lock
       (shared lock) on a file region, but only one process may hold  a  write
       lock  (exclusive  lock).   An  exclusive lock excludes all other locks,
       both shared and exclusive.  A single process can hold only one type  of
       lock  on  a  file region; if a new lock is applied to an already-locked
       region, then the existing lock is  converted  to  the  new  lock  type.
       (Such  conversions may involve splitting, shrinking, or coalescing with
       an existing lock if the byte range specified by the new lock  does  not
       precisely coincide with the range of the existing lock.)
       F_SETLK (struct flock *)
              Acquire  a lock (when l_type is F_RDLCK or F_WRLCK) or release a
              lock (when l_type is F_UNLCK) on  the  bytes  specified  by  the
              l_whence,  l_start,  and l_len fields of lock.  If a conflicting
              lock is held by another process, this call returns -1  and  sets
              errno to EACCES or EAGAIN.
       F_SETLKW (struct flock *)
              As  for  F_SETLK, but if a conflicting lock is held on the file,
              then wait for that lock to be released.  If a signal  is  caught
              while  waiting, then the call is interrupted and (after the sig-
              nal handler has returned) returns immediately (with return value
              -1 and errno set to EINTR; see signal(7)).
       F_GETLK (struct flock *)
              On  input  to  this call, lock describes a lock we would like to
              place on the file.  If the lock could be  placed,  fcntl()  does
              not  actually  place it, but returns F_UNLCK in the l_type field
              of lock and leaves the other fields of the structure  unchanged.
              If  one or more incompatible locks would prevent this lock being
              placed, then fcntl() returns details about one of these locks in
              the l_type, l_whence, l_start, and l_len fields of lock and sets
              l_pid to be the PID of the process holding that lock.
       In order to place a read lock, fd must be open for reading.   In  order
       to  place  a  write  lock,  fd must be open for writing.  To place both
       types of lock, open a file read-write.
       As well as being removed by an explicit F_UNLCK, record locks are auto-
       matically released when the process terminates or if it closes any file
       descriptor referring to a file on which locks are held.  This  is  bad:
       it  means  that a process can lose the locks on a file like /etc/passwd
       or /etc/mtab when for some reason a library function decides  to  open,
       read and close it.
       Record  locks are not inherited by a child created via fork(2), but are
       preserved across an execve(2).
       Because of the buffering performed by the stdio(3) library, the use  of
       record  locking  with  routines  in that package should be avoided; use
       read(2) and write(2) instead.
   Mandatory locking
       (Non-POSIX.)  The above record locks may be either advisory  or  manda-
       tory, and are advisory by default.
       Advisory locks are not enforced and are useful only between cooperating
       processes.
       Mandatory locks are enforced for all processes.  If a process tries  to
       perform  an  incompatible  access (e.g., read(2) or write(2)) on a file
       region that has an incompatible mandatory lock, then the result depends
       upon  whether the O_NONBLOCK flag is enabled for its open file descrip-
       tion.  If the O_NONBLOCK flag is  not  enabled,  then  system  call  is
       blocked  until  the lock is removed or converted to a mode that is com-
       patible with the access.  If the O_NONBLOCK flag is enabled,  then  the
       system call fails with the error EAGAIN.
       To  make use of mandatory locks, mandatory locking must be enabled both
       on the file system that contains the file to be locked, and on the file
       itself.   Mandatory  locking  is enabled on a file system using the "-o
       mand" option to mount(8), or the MS_MANDLOCK flag for mount(2).  Manda-
       tory locking is enabled on a file by disabling group execute permission
       on the file and enabling the set-group-ID permission bit (see  chmod(1)
       and chmod(2)).
       The  Linux implementation of mandatory locking is unreliable.  See BUGS
       below.
   Managing signals
       F_GETOWN, F_SETOWN, F_GETOWN_EX, F_SETOWN_EX, F_GETSIG and F_SETSIG are
       used to manage I/O availability signals:
       F_GETOWN (void)
              Return  (as the function result) the process ID or process group
              currently receiving SIGIO and SIGURG signals for events on  file
              descriptor  fd.   Process  IDs  are returned as positive values;
              process group IDs are returned as negative values (but see  BUGS
              below).  arg is ignored.
       F_SETOWN (int)
              Set  the  process ID or process group ID that will receive SIGIO
              and SIGURG signals for events on file descriptor fd  to  the  ID
              given  in arg.  A process ID is specified as a positive value; a
              process group ID is specified as a negative  value.   Most  com-
              monly,  the  calling process specifies itself as the owner (that
              is, arg is specified as getpid(2)).
              If you set the O_ASYNC status flag on a file descriptor by using
              the  F_SETFL command of fcntl(), a SIGIO signal is sent whenever
              input or  output  becomes  possible  on  that  file  descriptor.
              F_SETSIG  can  be used to obtain delivery of a signal other than
              SIGIO.  If this permission  check  fails,  then  the  signal  is
              silently discarded.
              Sending  a  signal  to  the  owner  process (group) specified by
              F_SETOWN is subject  to  the  same  permissions  checks  as  are
              described for kill(2), where the sending process is the one that
              employs F_SETOWN (but see BUGS below).
              If the file descriptor fd refers  to  a  socket,  F_SETOWN  also
              selects  the recipient of SIGURG signals that are delivered when
              out-of-band data arrives on that socket.  (SIGURG is sent in any
              situation  where  select(2) would report the socket as having an
              "exceptional condition".)
              The following was true in 2.6.x kernels up to and including ker-
              nel 2.6.11:
                     If  a  nonzero  value  is  given  to F_SETSIG in a multi-
                     threaded process running with a  threading  library  that
                     supports  thread  groups  (e.g.,  NPTL),  then a positive
                     value given to F_SETOWN has a different meaning:  instead
                     of  being a process ID identifying a whole process, it is
                     a thread  ID  identifying  a  specific  thread  within  a
                     process.   Consequently,  it  may  be  necessary  to pass
                     F_SETOWN the result of gettid(2) instead of getpid(2)  to
                     get  sensible results when F_SETSIG is used.  (In current
                     Linux threading implementations, a main  thread's  thread
                     ID is the same as its process ID.  This means that a sin-
                     gle-threaded program can equally use  gettid(2)  or  get-
                     pid(2) in this scenario.)  Note, however, that the state-
                     ments in this paragraph do not apply to the SIGURG signal
                     generated  for  out-of-band data on a socket: this signal
                     is always sent to either a process or  a  process  group,
                     depending on the value given to F_SETOWN.
              The above behavior was accidentally dropped in Linux 2.6.12, and
              won't be restored.  From Linux 2.6.32 onward, use F_SETOWN_EX to
              target SIGIO and SIGURG signals at a particular thread.
       F_GETOWN_EX (struct f_owner_ex *) (since Linux 2.6.32)
              Return  the current file descriptor owner settings as defined by
              a previous F_SETOWN_EX operation.  The information  is  returned
              in  the  structure  pointed  to  by arg, which has the following
              form:
                  struct f_owner_ex {
                      int   type;
                      pid_t pid;
                  };
              The  type  field  will  have  one  of  the  values  F_OWNER_TID,
              F_OWNER_PID, or F_OWNER_PGRP.  The pid field is a positive inte-
              ger representing a thread ID, process ID, or process  group  ID.
              See F_SETOWN_EX for more details.
       F_SETOWN_EX (struct f_owner_ex *) (since Linux 2.6.32)
              This  operation  performs a similar task to F_SETOWN.  It allows
              the caller to direct I/O  availability  signals  to  a  specific
              thread,  process,  or  process  group.  The caller specifies the
              target of signals via arg, which is a pointer  to  a  f_owner_ex
              structure.   The  type  field  has  one of the following values,
              which define how pid is interpreted:
              F_OWNER_TID
                     Send the signal to the thread whose thread ID (the  value
                     returned by a call to clone(2) or gettid(2)) is specified
                     in pid.
              F_OWNER_PID
                     Send the signal to the process whose ID is  specified  in
                     pid.
              F_OWNER_PGRP
                     Send  the  signal to the process group whose ID is speci-
                     fied in pid.  (Note that, unlike with F_SETOWN, a process
                     group ID is specified as a positive value here.)
       F_GETSIG (void)
              Return  (as  the  function result) the signal sent when input or
              output becomes possible.  A value of zero means SIGIO  is  sent.
              Any  other  value  (including SIGIO) is the signal sent instead,
              and in this case additional info is available to the signal han-
              dler if installed with SA_SIGINFO.  arg is ignored.
       F_SETSIG (int)
              Set the signal sent when input or output becomes possible to the
              value given in arg.  A value of zero means to send  the  default
              SIGIO  signal.   Any other value (including SIGIO) is the signal
              to send instead, and in this case additional info  is  available
              to the signal handler if installed with SA_SIGINFO.
              By  using  F_SETSIG with a nonzero value, and setting SA_SIGINFO
              for the signal handler  (see  sigaction(2)),  extra  information
              about  I/O events is passed to the handler in a siginfo_t struc-
              ture.  If the si_code field indicates the  source  is  SI_SIGIO,
              the  si_fd  field  gives the file descriptor associated with the
              event.  Otherwise, there is no indication which file descriptors
              are pending, and you should use the usual mechanisms (select(2),
              poll(2), read(2) with O_NONBLOCK set etc.)  to  determine  which
              file descriptors are available for I/O.
              By  selecting  a  real time signal (value >= SIGRTMIN), multiple
              I/O events may be queued using the same signal numbers.   (Queu-
              ing  is  dependent  on  available memory).  Extra information is
              available if SA_SIGINFO is set for the signal handler, as above.
              Note that Linux imposes a limit on the number of real-time  sig-
              nals  that may be queued to a process (see getrlimit(2) and sig-
              nal(7)) and if this limit is reached, then the kernel reverts to
              delivering  SIGIO,  and  this  signal is delivered to the entire
              process rather than to a specific thread.
       Using these mechanisms, a program can implement fully asynchronous  I/O
       without using select(2) or poll(2) most of the time.
       The  use  of  O_ASYNC, F_GETOWN, F_SETOWN is specific to BSD and Linux.
       F_GETOWN_EX, F_SETOWN_EX, F_GETSIG, and  F_SETSIG  are  Linux-specific.
       POSIX  has  asynchronous  I/O and the aio_sigevent structure to achieve
       similar things; these are also available in Linux as part of the GNU  C
       Library (Glibc).
   Leases
       F_SETLEASE and F_GETLEASE (Linux 2.4 onward) are used (respectively) to
       establish a new lease, and retrieve the current lease, on the open file
       description  referred  to by the file descriptor fd.  A file lease pro-
       vides a mechanism whereby the process holding  the  lease  (the  "lease
       holder")  is  notified  (via  delivery of a signal) when a process (the
       "lease breaker") tries to open(2) or truncate(2) the file  referred  to
       by that file descriptor.
       F_SETLEASE (int)
              Set  or  remove a file lease according to which of the following
              values is specified in the integer arg:
              F_RDLCK
                     Take out a read  lease.   This  will  cause  the  calling
                     process  to be notified when the file is opened for writ-
                     ing or is truncated.  A read lease can be placed only  on
                     a file descriptor that is opened read-only.
              F_WRLCK
                     Take out a write lease.  This will cause the caller to be
                     notified when the file is opened for reading  or  writing
                     or  is  truncated.  A write lease may be placed on a file
                     only if there are no other open file descriptors for  the
                     file.
              F_UNLCK
                     Remove our lease from the file.
       Leases  are  associated  with  an  open file description (see open(2)).
       This means that duplicate file descriptors (created  by,  for  example,
       fork(2) or dup(2)) refer to the same lease, and this lease may be modi-
       fied or released using any  of  these  descriptors.   Furthermore,  the
       lease  is  released  by  either an explicit F_UNLCK operation on any of
       these duplicate descriptors, or when all  such  descriptors  have  been
       closed.
       Leases may be taken out only on regular files.  An unprivileged process
       may take out a lease only on a file whose UID (owner) matches the  file
       system UID of the process.  A process with the CAP_LEASE capability may
       take out leases on arbitrary files.
       F_GETLEASE (void)
              Indicates what  type  of  lease  is  associated  with  the  file
              descriptor  fd by returning either F_RDLCK, F_WRLCK, or F_UNLCK,
              indicating, respectively, a read lease , a write  lease,  or  no
              lease.  arg is ignored.
       When a process (the "lease breaker") performs an open(2) or truncate(2)
       that conflicts with a lease established via F_SETLEASE, the system call
       is  blocked  by  the kernel and the kernel notifies the lease holder by
       sending it a signal  (SIGIO  by  default).   The  lease  holder  should
       respond to receipt of this signal by doing whatever cleanup is required
       in preparation for the file to be accessed by  another  process  (e.g.,
       flushing cached buffers) and then either remove or downgrade its lease.
       A lease is removed by performing an F_SETLEASE command  specifying  arg
       as  F_UNLCK.   If the lease holder currently holds a write lease on the
       file, and the lease breaker is opening the file for reading, then it is
       sufficient for the lease holder to downgrade the lease to a read lease.
       This is done by performing an  F_SETLEASE  command  specifying  arg  as
       F_RDLCK.
       If  the  lease holder fails to downgrade or remove the lease within the
       number of seconds specified in /proc/sys/fs/lease-break-time  then  the
       kernel forcibly removes or downgrades the lease holder's lease.
       Once  a  lease  break has been initiated, F_GETLEASE returns the target
       lease type (either F_RDLCK or F_UNLCK, depending on what would be  com-
       patible  with  the  lease  breaker)  until the lease holder voluntarily
       downgrades or removes the lease or the kernel forcibly  does  so  after
       the lease break timer expires.
       Once  the lease has been voluntarily or forcibly removed or downgraded,
       and assuming the lease breaker has not unblocked its system  call,  the
       kernel permits the lease breaker's system call to proceed.
       If the lease breaker's blocked open(2) or truncate(2) is interrupted by
       a signal handler, then the system call fails with the error EINTR,  but
       the  other  steps still occur as described above.  If the lease breaker
       is killed by a signal while blocked in open(2) or truncate(2), then the
       other steps still occur as described above.  If the lease breaker spec-
       ifies the O_NONBLOCK flag when calling open(2), then the  call  immedi-
       ately fails with the error EWOULDBLOCK, but the other steps still occur
       as described above.
       The default signal used to notify the lease holder is SIGIO,  but  this
       can  be  changed  using the F_SETSIG command to fcntl().  If a F_SETSIG
       command is performed (even one specifying SIGIO), and the  signal  han-
       dler  is  established using SA_SIGINFO, then the handler will receive a
       siginfo_t structure as its second argument, and the si_fd field of this
       argument  will  hold  the  descriptor  of the leased file that has been
       accessed by another process.  (This  is  useful  if  the  caller  holds
       leases against multiple files).
   File and directory change notification (dnotify)
       F_NOTIFY (int)
              (Linux  2.4  onward)  Provide  notification  when  the directory
              referred to by fd or any  of  the  files  that  it  contains  is
              changed.   The events to be notified are specified in arg, which
              is a bit mask specified by ORing together zero or  more  of  the
              following bits:
              DN_ACCESS   A file was accessed (read, pread, readv)
              DN_MODIFY   A  file  was  modified (write, pwrite, writev, trun-
                          cate, ftruncate).
              DN_CREATE   A file was created (open, creat, mknod, mkdir, link,
                          symlink, rename).
              DN_DELETE   A  file  was  unlinked  (unlink,  rename  to another
                          directory, rmdir).
              DN_RENAME   A file was renamed within this directory (rename).
              DN_ATTRIB   The attributes of a file were changed (chown, chmod,
                          utime[s]).
              (In  order  to obtain these definitions, the _GNU_SOURCE feature
              test macro must be defined before including any header files.)
              Directory notifications are normally "one-shot", and the  appli-
              cation must reregister to receive further notifications.  Alter-
              natively, if DN_MULTISHOT is included in arg, then  notification
              will remain in effect until explicitly removed.
              A  series of F_NOTIFY requests is cumulative, with the events in
              arg being added to the set already monitored.  To disable  noti-
              fication  of all events, make an F_NOTIFY call specifying arg as
              0.
              Notification occurs via delivery of a signal.  The default  sig-
              nal is SIGIO, but this can be changed using the F_SETSIG command
              to fcntl().  In the latter case, the signal handler  receives  a
              siginfo_t  structure  as its second argument (if the handler was
              established using SA_SIGINFO) and the si_fd field of this struc-
              ture  contains the file descriptor which generated the notifica-
              tion (useful when establishing notification on multiple directo-
              ries).
              Especially when using DN_MULTISHOT, a real time signal should be
              used for notification, so that  multiple  notifications  can  be
              queued.
              NOTE:  New applications should use the inotify interface (avail-
              able since kernel 2.6.13), which provides a much superior inter-
              face  for  obtaining  notifications  of file system events.  See
              inotify(7).
   Changing the capacity of a pipe
       F_SETPIPE_SZ (int; since Linux 2.6.35)
              Change the capacity of the pipe referred to by fd to be at least
              arg bytes.  An unprivileged process can adjust the pipe capacity
              to any value between the system page size and the limit  defined
              in  /proc/sys/fs/pipe-max-size  (see  proc(5)).  Attempts to set
              the pipe capacity below the page size are silently rounded up to
              the  page  size.  Attempts by an unprivileged process to set the
              pipe capacity  above  the  limit  in  /proc/sys/fs/pipe-max-size
              yield  the  error EPERM; a privileged process (CAP_SYS_RESOURCE)
              can override the limit.  When  allocating  the  buffer  for  the
              pipe,  the kernel may use a capacity larger than arg, if that is
              convenient for the implementation.  The  F_GETPIPE_SZ  operation
              returns the actual size used.  Attempting to set the pipe capac-
              ity smaller than the amount of buffer space  currently  used  to
              store data produces the error EBUSY.
       F_GETPIPE_SZ (void; since Linux 2.6.35)
              Return  (as  the  function  result)  the  capacity  of  the pipe
              referred to by fd.
RETURN VALUE
       For a successful call, the return value depends on the operation:
       F_DUPFD  The new descriptor.
       F_GETFD  Value of file descriptor flags.
       F_GETFL  Value of file status flags.
       F_GETLEASE
                Type of lease held on file descriptor.
       F_GETOWN Value of descriptor owner.
       F_GETSIG Value of signal sent when read or write becomes  possible,  or
                zero for traditional SIGIO behavior.
       F_GETPIPE_SZ
                The pipe capacity.
       All other commands
                Zero.
       On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.
ERRORS
       EACCES or EAGAIN
              Operation is prohibited by locks held by other processes.
       EAGAIN The  operation  is  prohibited because the file has been memory-
              mapped by another process.
       EBADF  fd is not an open file descriptor, or the command was F_SETLK or
              F_SETLKW  and  the  file descriptor open mode doesn't match with
              the type of lock requested.
       EDEADLK
              It was detected that the specified F_SETLKW command would  cause
              a deadlock.
       EFAULT lock is outside your accessible address space.
       EINTR  For  F_SETLKW, the command was interrupted by a signal; see sig-
              nal(7).  For F_GETLK and F_SETLK, the command was interrupted by
              a  signal  before the lock was checked or acquired.  Most likely
              when locking a remote file (e.g., locking  over  NFS),  but  can
              sometimes happen locally.
       EINVAL For  F_DUPFD,  arg  is  negative  or is greater than the maximum
              allowable value.  For F_SETSIG, arg is not an  allowable  signal
              number.
       EMFILE For  F_DUPFD, the process already has the maximum number of file
              descriptors open.
       ENOLCK Too many segment locks open, lock table is  full,  or  a  remote
              locking protocol failed (e.g., locking over NFS).
       EPERM  Attempted  to  clear  the  O_APPEND  flag on a file that has the
              append-only attribute set.
CONFORMING TO
       SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.   Only  the  operations  F_DUPFD,  F_GETFD,
       F_SETFD, F_GETFL, F_SETFL, F_GETLK, F_SETLK and F_SETLKW, are specified
       in POSIX.1-2001.
       F_GETOWN and F_SETOWN are specified in  POSIX.1-2001.   (To  get  their
       definitions,  define BSD_SOURCE, or _XOPEN_SOURCE with the value 500 or
       greater, or define _POSIX_C_SOURCE with the value 200809L or greater.)
       F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC is specified in POSIX.1-2008.  (To get this definition,
       define   _POSIX_C_SOURCE   with   the  value  200809L  or  greater,  or
       _XOPEN_SOURCE with the value 700 or greater.)
       F_GETOWN_EX, F_SETOWN_EX, F_SETPIPE_SZ, F_GETPIPE_SZ, F_GETSIG,  F_SET-
       SIG,  F_NOTIFY, F_GETLEASE, and F_SETLEASE are Linux-specific.  (Define
       the _GNU_SOURCE macro to obtain these definitions.)
NOTES
       The original Linux fcntl() system call was not designed to handle large
       file offsets (in the flock structure).  Consequently, an fcntl64() sys-
       tem call was added in Linux 2.4.  The newer system call employs a  dif-
       ferent structure for file locking, flock64, and corresponding commands,
       F_GETLK64, F_SETLK64, and F_SETLKW64.  However, these  details  can  be
       ignored  by  applications  using  glibc, whose fcntl() wrapper function
       transparently employs the more recent system call where  it  is  avail-
       able.
       The  errors  returned  by  dup2(2) are different from those returned by
       F_DUPFD.
       Since kernel 2.0, there is no interaction between  the  types  of  lock
       placed by flock(2) and fcntl().
       Several  systems have more fields in struct flock such as, for example,
       l_sysid.  Clearly, l_pid alone is not going to be very  useful  if  the
       process holding the lock may live on a different machine.
BUGS
       A limitation of the Linux system call conventions on some architectures
       (notably i386) means that if  a  (negative)  process  group  ID  to  be
       returned  by  F_GETOWN  falls in the range -1 to -4095, then the return
       value is wrongly interpreted by glibc as an error in the  system  call;
       that is, the return value of fcntl() will be -1, and errno will contain
       the (positive) process group ID.  The Linux-specific F_GETOWN_EX opera-
       tion  avoids  this  problem.  Since glibc version 2.11, glibc makes the
       kernel  F_GETOWN  problem  invisible  by  implementing  F_GETOWN  using
       F_GETOWN_EX.
       In  Linux 2.4 and earlier, there is bug that can occur when an unprivi-
       leged process uses F_SETOWN to specify  the  owner  of  a  socket  file
       descriptor  as  a process (group) other than the caller.  In this case,
       fcntl() can return -1 with errno set to  EPERM,  even  when  the  owner
       process  (group)  is one that the caller has permission to send signals
       to.  Despite this error return, the file descriptor owner is  set,  and
       signals will be sent to the owner.
       The  implementation of mandatory locking in all known versions of Linux
       is subject to race conditions which render it  unreliable:  a  write(2)
       call that overlaps with a lock may modify data after the mandatory lock
       is acquired; a read(2) call  that  overlaps  with  a  lock  may  detect
       changes  to  data  that were made only after a write lock was acquired.
       Similar races exist between mandatory locks and mmap(2).  It is  there-
       fore inadvisable to rely on mandatory locking.
SEE ALSO
       dup2(2),  flock(2), open(2), socket(2), lockf(3), capabilities(7), fea-
       ture_test_macros(7)
       locks.txt, mandatory-locking.txt, and dnotify.txt in the  Linux  kernel
       source  directory  Documentation/filesystems/  (on older kernels, these
       files are directly under the Documentation/ directory,  and  mandatory-
       locking.txt is called mandatory.txt)
COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.53 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                             2012-04-15                          FCNTL(2)