FSYNC(1) The SuSE boot concept FSYNC(1)NAME
fsync - synchronize the specified file with storage device
SYNOPSIS
fsync file
DESCRIPTION
fsync synchronize the in-core state of the specified file with the storage device
BUGS
The fsync program uses the fsync(2) function and therefore shows the same weaknesses by any system activity.
SEE ALSO fsync(2), fdatasync(2).
COPYRIGHT
2007 Werner Fink, 2007 SuSE GmbH Nuernberg, Germany.
AUTHOR
Werner Fink <werner@suse.de>
3rd Berkeley Distribution Jun 18, 2007 FSYNC(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
FSYNC(2) BSD System Calls Manual FSYNC(2)NAME
fsync -- synchronize a file's in-core state with that on disk
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int
fsync(int fildes);
DESCRIPTION
Fsync() causes all modified data and attributes of fildes to be moved to a permanent storage device. This normally results in all in-core
modified copies of buffers for the associated file to be written to a disk.
Note that while fsync() will flush all data from the host to the drive (i.e. the "permanent storage device"), the drive itself may not physi-
cally write the data to the platters for quite some time and it may be written in an out-of-order sequence.
Specifically, if the drive loses power or the OS crashes, the application may find that only some or none of their data was written. The
disk drive may also re-order the data so that later writes may be present, while earlier writes are not.
This is not a theoretical edge case. This scenario is easily reproduced with real world workloads and drive power failures.
For applications that require tighter guarantees about the integrity of their data, Mac OS X provides the F_FULLFSYNC fcntl. The F_FULLFSYNC
fcntl asks the drive to flush all buffered data to permanent storage. Applications, such as databases, that require a strict ordering of
writes should use F_FULLFSYNC to ensure that their data is written in the order they expect. Please see fcntl(2) for more detail.
RETURN VALUES
The fsync() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate
the error.
ERRORS
The fsync() system call will fail if:
[EBADF] fildes is not a valid descriptor.
[EINTR] Its execution is interrupted by a signal.
[EINVAL] fildes refers to a file type (e.g., a socket) that does not support this operation.
[EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
If a queued I/O operation fails, fsync() may fail with any of the errors defined for read(2) or write(2).
SEE ALSO fcntl(2), read(2), sync(2), write(2), sync(8), update(8)HISTORY
The fsync() function call appeared in 4.2BSD.
4.2 Berkeley Distribution June 4, 1993 4.2 Berkeley Distribution