shmget
SHMGET(2) Linux Programmer's Manual SHMGET(2)
NAME
shmget - allocates a System V shared memory segment
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/ipc.h>
#include <sys/shm.h>
int shmget(key_t key, size_t size, int shmflg);
DESCRIPTION
shmget() returns the identifier of the System V shared memory segment
associated with the value of the argument key. It may be used either
to obtain the identifier of a previously created shared memory segment
(when shmflg is zero and key does not have the value IPC_PRIVATE), or
to create a new set.
A new shared memory segment, with size equal to the value of size
rounded up to a multiple of PAGE_SIZE, is created if key has the value
IPC_PRIVATE or key isn't IPC_PRIVATE, no shared memory segment corre-
sponding to key exists, and IPC_CREAT is specified in shmflg.
If shmflg specifies both IPC_CREAT and IPC_EXCL and a shared memory
segment already exists for key, then shmget() fails with errno set to
EEXIST. (This is analogous to the effect of the combination O_CREAT |
O_EXCL for open(2).)
The value shmflg is composed of:
IPC_CREAT Create a new segment. If this flag is not used, then
shmget() will find the segment associated with key and
check to see if the user has permission to access the seg-
ment.
IPC_EXCL This flag is used with IPC_CREAT to ensure that this call
creates the segment. If the segment already exists, the
call fails.
SHM_HUGETLB (since Linux 2.6)
Allocate the segment using "huge pages." See the Linux
kernel source file Documentation/admin-guide/mm/hugetlb-
page.rst for further information.
SHM_HUGE_2MB, SHM_HUGE_1GB (since Linux 3.8)
Used in conjunction with SHM_HUGETLB to select alternative
hugetlb page sizes (respectively, 2 MB and 1 GB) on systems
that support multiple hugetlb page sizes.
More generally, the desired huge page size can be config-
ured by encoding the base-2 logarithm of the desired page
size in the six bits at the offset SHM_HUGE_SHIFT. Thus,
the above two constants are defined as:
#define SHM_HUGE_2MB (21 << SHM_HUGE_SHIFT)
#define SHM_HUGE_1GB (30 << SHM_HUGE_SHIFT)
For some additional details, see the discussion of the sim-
ilarly named constants in mmap(2).
SHM_NORESERVE (since Linux 2.6.15)
This flag serves the same purpose as the mmap(2) MAP_NORE-
SERVE flag. Do not reserve swap space for this segment.
When swap space is reserved, one has the guarantee that it
is possible to modify the segment. When swap space is not
reserved one might get SIGSEGV upon a write if no physical
memory is available. See also the discussion of the file
/proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory in proc(5).
In addition to the above flags, the least significant 9 bits of shmflg
specify the permissions granted to the owner, group, and others. These
bits have the same format, and the same meaning, as the mode argument
of open(2). Presently, execute permissions are not used by the system.
When a new shared memory segment is created, its contents are initial-
ized to zero values, and its associated data structure, shmid_ds (see
shmctl(2)), is initialized as follows:
shm_perm.cuid and shm_perm.uid are set to the effective user ID
of the calling process.
shm_perm.cgid and shm_perm.gid are set to the effective group ID
of the calling process.
The least significant 9 bits of shm_perm.mode are set to the
least significant 9 bit of shmflg.
shm_segsz is set to the value of size.
shm_lpid, shm_nattch, shm_atime, and shm_dtime are set to 0.
shm_ctime is set to the current time.
If the shared memory segment already exists, the permissions are veri-
fied, and a check is made to see if it is marked for destruction.
RETURN VALUE
On success, a valid shared memory identifier is returned. On error, -1
is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
On failure, errno is set to one of the following:
EACCES The user does not have permission to access the shared memory
segment, and does not have the CAP_IPC_OWNER capability in the
user namespace that governs its IPC namespace.
EEXIST IPC_CREAT and IPC_EXCL were specified in shmflg, but a shared
memory segment already exists for key.
EINVAL A new segment was to be created and size is less than SHMMIN or
greater than SHMMAX.
EINVAL A segment for the given key exists, but size is greater than the
size of that segment.
ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been
reached.
ENOENT No segment exists for the given key, and IPC_CREAT was not spec-
ified.
ENOMEM No memory could be allocated for segment overhead.
ENOSPC All possible shared memory IDs have been taken (SHMMNI), or al-
locating a segment of the requested size would cause the system
to exceed the system-wide limit on shared memory (SHMALL).
EPERM The SHM_HUGETLB flag was specified, but the caller was not priv-
ileged (did not have the CAP_IPC_LOCK capability).
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4.
SHM_HUGETLB and SHM_NORESERVE are Linux extensions.
NOTES
The inclusion of <sys/types.h> and <sys/ipc.h> isn't required on Linux
or by any version of POSIX. However, some old implementations required
the inclusion of these header files, and the SVID also documented their
inclusion. Applications intended to be portable to such old systems
may need to include these header files.
IPC_PRIVATE isn't a flag field but a key_t type. If this special value
is used for key, the system call ignores all but the least significant
9 bits of shmflg and creates a new shared memory segment.
Shared memory limits
The following limits on shared memory segment resources affect the
shmget() call:
SHMALL System-wide limit on the total amount of shared memory, measured
in units of the system page size.
On Linux, this limit can be read and modified via /proc/sys/ker-
nel/shmall. Since Linux 3.16, the default value for this limit
is:
ULONG_MAX - 2^24
The effect of this value (which is suitable for both 32-bit and
64-bit systems) is to impose no limitation on allocations. This
value, rather than ULONG_MAX, was chosen as the default to pre-
vent some cases where historical applications simply raised the
existing limit without first checking its current value. Such
applications would cause the value to overflow if the limit was
set at ULONG_MAX.
From Linux 2.4 up to Linux 3.15, the default value for this
limit was:
SHMMAX / PAGE_SIZE * (SHMMNI / 16)
If SHMMAX and SHMMNI were not modified, then multiplying the re-
sult of this formula by the page size (to get a value in bytes)
yielded a value of 8 GB as the limit on the total memory used by
all shared memory segments.
SHMMAX Maximum size in bytes for a shared memory segment.
On Linux, this limit can be read and modified via /proc/sys/ker-
nel/shmmax. Since Linux 3.16, the default value for this limit
is:
ULONG_MAX - 2^24
The effect of this value (which is suitable for both 32-bit and
64-bit systems) is to impose no limitation on allocations. See
the description of SHMALL for a discussion of why this default
value (rather than ULONG_MAX) is used.
From Linux 2.2 up to Linux 3.15, the default value of this limit
was 0x2000000 (32 MB).
Because it is not possible to map just part of a shared memory
segment, the amount of virtual memory places another limit on
the maximum size of a usable segment: for example, on i386 the
largest segments that can be mapped have a size of around
2.8 GB, and on x86-64 the limit is around 127 TB.
SHMMIN Minimum size in bytes for a shared memory segment: implementa-
tion dependent (currently 1 byte, though PAGE_SIZE is the effec-
tive minimum size).
SHMMNI System-wide limit on the number of shared memory segments. In
Linux 2.2, the default value for this limit was 128; since Linux
2.4, the default value is 4096.
On Linux, this limit can be read and modified via /proc/sys/ker-
nel/shmmni.
The implementation has no specific limits for the per-process maximum
number of shared memory segments (SHMSEG).
Linux notes
Until version 2.3.30, Linux would return EIDRM for a shmget() on a
shared memory segment scheduled for deletion.
BUGS
The name choice IPC_PRIVATE was perhaps unfortunate, IPC_NEW would more
clearly show its function.
SEE ALSO
memfd_create(2), shmat(2), shmctl(2), shmdt(2), ftok(3), capabili-
ties(7), shm_overview(7), sysvipc(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 5.05 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 2019-08-02 SHMGET(2)
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