KQUEUE(2) NetBSD System Calls Manual KQUEUE(2)
NAME
kqueue, kevent -- kernel event notification mechanism
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/event.h> #include <sys/time.h> int kqueue(void); int kevent(int kq, const struct kevent *changelist, size_t nchanges, struct kevent *eventlist, size_t nevents, const struct timespec *timeout); EV_SET(&kev, ident, filter, flags, fflags, data, udata);
DESCRIPTION
kqueue() provides a generic method of notifying the user when an event happens or a condition holds, based on the results of small pieces of kernel code termed filters. A kevent is identified by the (ident, fil- ter) pair; there may only be one unique kevent per kqueue. The filter is executed upon the initial registration of a kevent in order to detect whether a preexisting condition is present, and is also exe- cuted whenever an event is passed to the filter for evaluation. If the filter determines that the condition should be reported, then the kevent is placed on the kqueue for the user to retrieve. The filter is also run when the user attempts to retrieve the kevent from the kqueue. If the filter indicates that the condition that triggered the event no longer holds, the kevent is removed from the kqueue and is not returned. Multiple events which trigger the filter do not result in multiple kevents being placed on the kqueue; instead, the filter will aggregate the events into a single struct kevent. Calling close() on a file descriptor will remove any kevents that reference the descriptor. kqueue() creates a new kernel event queue and returns a descriptor. The queue is not inherited by a child created with fork(2). kevent() is used to register events with the queue, and return any pend- ing events to the user. changelist is a pointer to an array of kevent structures, as defined in <sys/event.h>. All changes contained in the changelist are applied before any pending events are read from the queue. nchanges gives the size of changelist. eventlist is a pointer to an array of kevent structures. nevents determines the size of eventlist. If timeout is a non-NULL pointer, it specifies a maximum interval to wait for an event, which will be interpreted as a struct timespec. If timeout is a NULL pointer, kevent() waits indefinitely. To effect a poll, the timeout argument should be non-NULL, pointing to a zero-valued timespec structure. The same array may be used for the changelist and eventlist. EV_SET() is a macro which is provided for ease of initializing a kevent structure. The kevent structure is defined as: struct kevent { uintptr_t ident; /* identifier for this event */ uint32_t filter; /* filter for event */ uint32_t flags; /* action flags for kqueue */ uint32_t fflags; /* filter flag value */ int64_t data; /* filter data value */ intptr_t udata; /* opaque user data identifier */ }; The fields of struct kevent are: ident Value used to identify this event. The exact interpre- tation is determined by the attached filter, but often is a file descriptor. filter Identifies the kernel filter used to process this event. There are pre-defined system filters (which are described below), and other filters may be added by ker- nel subsystems as necessary. flags Actions to perform on the event. fflags Filter-specific flags. data Filter-specific data value. udata Opaque user-defined value passed through the kernel unchanged. The flags field can contain the following values: EV_ADD Adds the event to the kqueue. Re-adding an existing event will modify the parameters of the original event, and not result in a duplicate entry. Adding an event automatically enables it, unless overridden by the EV_DISABLE flag. EV_ENABLE Permit kevent() to return the event if it is trig- gered. EV_DISABLE Disable the event so kevent() will not return it. The filter itself is not disabled. EV_DELETE Removes the event from the kqueue. Events which are attached to file descriptors are automatically deleted on the last close of the descriptor. EV_ONESHOT Causes the event to return only the first occurrence of the filter being triggered. After the user retrieves the event from the kqueue, it is deleted. EV_CLEAR After the event is retrieved by the user, its state is reset. This is useful for filters which report state transitions instead of the current state. Note that some filters may automatically set this flag internally. EV_EOF Filters may set this flag to indicate filter-spe- cific EOF condition. EV_ERROR See RETURN VALUES below. Filters Filters are identified by a number. There are two types of filters; pre- defined filters which are described below, and third-party filters that may be added with kfilter_register(9) by kernel sub-systems, third-party device drivers, or loadable kernel modules. As a third-party filter is referenced by a well-known name instead of a statically assigned number, two ioctl(2)s are supported on the file descriptor returned by kqueue() to map a filter name to a filter number, and vice-versa (passing arguments in a structure described below): KFILTER_BYFILTER Map filter to name, which is of size len. KFILTER_BYNAME Map name to filter. len is ignored. The following structure is used to pass arguments in and out of the ioctl(2): struct kfilter_mapping { char *name; /* name to lookup or return */ size_t len; /* length of name */ uint32_t filter; /* filter to lookup or return */ }; Arguments may be passed to and from the filter via the fflags and data fields in the kevent structure. The predefined system filters are: EVFILT_READ Takes a descriptor as the identifier, and returns whenever there is data available to read. The behavior of the fil- ter is slightly different depending on the descriptor type. Sockets Sockets which have previously been passed to listen() return when there is an incoming connection pending. data contains the size of the listen backlog (i.e., the number of connections ready to be accepted with accept(2).) Other socket descriptors return when there is data to be read, subject to the SO_RCVLOWAT value of the socket buffer. This may be overridden with a per-fil- ter low water mark at the time the filter is added by setting the NOTE_LOWAT flag in fflags, and specifying the new low water mark in data. On return, data con- tains the number of bytes in the socket buffer. If the read direction of the socket has shutdown, then the filter also sets EV_EOF in flags, and returns the socket error (if any) in fflags. It is possible for EOF to be returned (indicating the connection is gone) while there is still data pending in the socket buffer. Vnodes Returns when the file pointer is not at the end of file. data contains the offset from current position to end of file, and may be negative. Fifos, Pipes Returns when the there is data to read; data contains the number of bytes available. When the last writer disconnects, the filter will set EV_EOF in flags. This may be cleared by passing in EV_CLEAR, at which point the filter will resume wait- ing for data to become available before returning. EVFILT_WRITE Takes a descriptor as the identifier, and returns whenever it is possible to write to the descriptor. For sockets, pipes, fifos, and ttys, data will contain the amount of space remaining in the write buffer. The filter will set EV_EOF when the reader disconnects, and for the fifo case, this may be cleared by use of EV_CLEAR. Note that this filter is not supported for vnodes. For sockets, the low water mark and socket error handling is identical to the EVFILT_READ case. EVFILT_AIO This is not implemented in NetBSD. EVFILT_VNODE Takes a file descriptor as the identifier and the events to watch for in fflags, and returns when one or more of the requested events occurs on the descriptor. The events to monitor are: NOTE_DELETE unlink() was called on the file referenced by the descriptor. NOTE_WRITE A write occurred on the file referenced by the descriptor. NOTE_EXTEND The file referenced by the descriptor was extended. NOTE_ATTRIB The file referenced by the descriptor had its attributes changed. NOTE_LINK The link count on the file changed. NOTE_RENAME The file referenced by the descriptor was renamed. NOTE_REVOKE Access to the file was revoked via revoke(2) or the underlying fileystem was unmounted. On return, fflags contains the events which triggered the filter. EVFILT_PROC Takes the process ID to monitor as the identifier and the events to watch for in fflags, and returns when the process performs one or more of the requested events. If a process can normally see another process, it can attach an event to it. The events to monitor are: NOTE_EXIT The process has exited. NOTE_FORK The process has called fork(). NOTE_EXEC The process has executed a new process via execve(2) or similar call. NOTE_TRACK Follow a process across fork() calls. The parent process will return with NOTE_TRACK set in the fflags field, while the child process will return with NOTE_CHILD set in fflags and the parent PID in data. NOTE_TRACKERR This flag is returned if the system was unable to attach an event to the child process, usually due to resource limita- tions. On return, fflags contains the events which triggered the filter. EVFILT_SIGNAL Takes the signal number to monitor as the identifier and returns when the given signal is delivered to the current process. This coexists with the signal() and sigaction() facilities, and has a lower precedence. The filter will record all attempts to deliver a signal to a process, even if the signal has been marked as SIG_IGN. Event notifica- tion happens after normal signal delivery processing. data returns the number of times the signal has occurred since the last call to kevent(). This filter automati- cally sets the EV_CLEAR flag internally. EVFILT_TIMER Establishes an arbitrary timer identified by ident. When adding a timer, data specifies the timeout period in mil- liseconds. The timer will be periodic unless EV_ONESHOT is specified. On return, data contains the number of times the timeout has expired since the last call to kevent(). This filter automatically sets the EV_CLEAR flag internally.
RETURN VALUES
kqueue() creates a new kernel event queue and returns a file descriptor. If there was an error creating the kernel event queue, a value of -1 is returned and errno set. kevent() returns the number of events placed in the eventlist, up to the value given by nevents. If an error occurs while processing an element of the changelist and there is enough room in the eventlist, then the event will be placed in the eventlist with EV_ERROR set in flags and the system error in data. Otherwise, -1 will be returned, and errno will be set to indicate the error condition. If the time limit expires, then kevent() returns 0.
ERRORS
The kqueue() function fails if: [ENOMEM] The kernel failed to allocate enough memory for the kernel queue. [EMFILE] The per-process descriptor table is full. [ENFILE] The system file table is full. The kevent() function fails if: [EACCES] The process does not have permission to register a filter. [EFAULT] There was an error reading or writing the kevent structure. [EBADF] The specified descriptor is invalid. [EINTR] A signal was delivered before the timeout expired and before any events were placed on the kqueue for return. [EINVAL] The specified time limit or filter is invalid. [ENOENT] The event could not be found to be modified or deleted. [ENOMEM] No memory was available to register the event. [ESRCH] The specified process to attach to does not exist.
SEE ALSO
ioctl(2), poll(2), read(2), select(2), sigaction(2), write(2), signal(3), kfilter_register(9), knote(9)
HISTORY
The kqueue() and kevent() functions first appeared in FreeBSD 4.1, and then in NetBSD 2.0.
AUTHORS
The kqueue() system and this manual page were written by Jonathan Lemon <jlemon@FreeBSD.org>. NetBSD port and manpage additions were done by Luke Mewburn <lukem@NetBSD.org>, Jason Thorpe <thorpej@NetBSD.org>, and Jaromir Dolecek <jdolecek@NetBSD.org>. NetBSD 4.0 February 4, 2003 NetBSD 4.0
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