GET_KERNEL_SYMS(2) Linux Programmer's Manual GET_KERNEL_SYMS(2)
NAME
get_kernel_syms - retrieve exported kernel and module symbols
SYNOPSIS
#include <linux/module.h>
int get_kernel_syms(struct kernel_sym *table);
Note: No declaration of this system call is provided in glibc headers;
see NOTES.
DESCRIPTION
Note: This system call is present only in kernels before Linux 2.6.
If table is NULL, get_kernel_syms() returns the number of symbols
available for query. Otherwise, it fills in a table of structures:
struct kernel_sym {
unsigned long value;
char name[60];
};
The symbols are interspersed with magic symbols of the form #module-
name with the kernel having an empty name. The value associated with a
symbol of this form is the address at which the module is loaded.
The symbols exported from each module follow their magic module tag and
the modules are returned in the reverse of the order in which they were
loaded.
RETURN VALUE
On success, returns the number of symbols copied to table. On error,
-1 is returned and errno is set appropriately.
ERRORS
There is only one possible error return:
ENOSYS get_kernel_syms() is not supported in this version of the ker-
nel.
VERSIONS
This system call is present on Linux only up until kernel 2.4; it was
removed in Linux 2.6.
CONFORMING TO
get_kernel_syms() is Linux-specific.
NOTES
This obsolete system call is not supported by glibc. No declaration is
provided in glibc headers, but, through a quirk of history, glibc ver-
sions before 2.23 did export an ABI for this system call. Therefore,
in order to employ this system call, it was sufficient to manually
declare the interface in your code; alternatively, you could invoke the
system call using syscall(2).
BUGS
There is no way to indicate the size of the buffer allocated for table.
If symbols have been added to the kernel since the program queried for
the symbol table size, memory will be corrupted.
The length of exported symbol names is limited to 59 characters.
Because of these limitations, this system call is deprecated in favor
of query_module(2) (which is itself nowadays deprecated in favor of
other interfaces described on its manual page).
SEE ALSO
create_module(2), delete_module(2), init_module(2), query_module(2)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 4.15 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
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2017-09-15 GET_KERNEL_SYMS(2)