IOCTL(9)						   BSD Kernel Developer's Manual						  IOCTL(9)

NAME

     ioctl -- how to implement a new ioctl call to access device drivers

SYNOPSIS

     #include <sys/ioctl.h>
     #include <sys/ioccom.h>

     int
     ioctl(int, unsigned long, ...);

DESCRIPTION

     ioctl are internally defined as

     #define FOOIOCTL fun(t,n,pt)

     where the different variables and functions are:

     FOOIOCTL  the name which will later be given in the ioctl(2) system call as second argument, e.g.,
		     ioctl(s, FOOIOCTL, ...).

     fun()     a macro which can be one of

	       _IO    the call is a simple message to the kernel by itself.  It does not copy anything into the kernel, nor does it want anything
		      back.

	       _IOR   the call only reads parameters from the kernel and does not pass any to it

	       _IOW   the call only writes parameters to the kernel, but does not want anything back

	       _IOWR  the call writes data to the kernel and wants information back.

     t	       This integer describes to which subsystem the ioctl applies.  t can be one of
	       '1'    pulse-per-second interface
	       '4'    isdn(4)
	       'a'    ISO networking
	       'A'    ac devices (hp300)
	       'A'    Advanced Power Management (hpcmips, i386, sparc), see apm(4)
	       'A'    ADB devices (mac68k, macppc)
	       'A'    audio(4)
	       'A'    isdntel(4)
	       'b'    tb(4)
	       'b'    Bluetooth HCI sockets, see bluetooth(4)
	       'b'    Bluetooth Hub Control, see bthub(4)
	       'b'    Bluetooth SCO audio driver, see btsco(4)
	       'B'    bell device (x68k)
	       'B'    bpf(4)
	       'c'    coda
	       'c'    cd(4)
	       'c'    ch(4)
	       'C'    clock devices (amiga, atari, hp300, x68k)
	       'C'    isdnctl(4)
	       'd'    the disk subsystem
	       'E'    envsys(4)
	       'f'    files
	       'F'    Sun-compatible framebuffers
	       'F'    ccd(4) and vnd(4)
	       'g'    qdss framebuffers
	       'G'    grf devices (amiga, atari, hp300, mac68k, x68k)
	       'h'    HIL devices (hp300)
	       'H'    HIL devices (hp300)
	       'H'    HPc framebuffers
	       'i'    a (pseudo) interface
	       'I'    ite(4) (mac68k)
	       'J'    ISA joystick interface
	       'k'    Sun-compatible (and other) keyboards
	       'l'    leo devices (atari)
	       'm'    mtio(4)
	       'M'    mouse devices (atari)
	       'M'    mlx(4)
	       'n'    virtual console device (arm32)
	       'n'    SMB networking
	       'O'    OpenPROM and OpenFirmware
	       'p'    power control (x68k)
	       'P'    parallel port (amiga, x68k)
	       'P'    profiling (arm32)
	       'P'    printer/plotter interface (hp300)
	       'P'    pci(4)
	       'P'    compat/ossaudio and soundcard.h
	       'P'    magma(4) bpp (sparc)
	       'q'    altq(9)
	       'q'    pmax graphics devices
	       'Q'    altq(9)
	       'Q'    raw SCSI commands
	       'r'    the routing subsystem
	       'r'    md(4)
	       'R'    isdnbchan(4)
	       'R'    rnd(4)
	       's'    the socket layer
	       's'    satlink devices
	       'S'    SCSI disks (arc, hp300, pmax)
	       'S'    watchdog devices (sh3)
	       'S'    ISA speaker devices
	       'S'    stic devices
	       'S'    scanners
	       't'    the tty layer
	       'u'    user defined ???
	       'U'    scsibus (see scsi(4))
	       'v'    Sun-compatible ``firm events''
	       'V'    view device (amiga, atari)
	       'V'    sram device (x68k)
	       'w'    watchdog devices
	       'W'    wt devices
	       'W'    wscons devices
	       'x'    bt8xx devices
	       'Z'    ite devices (amiga, atari, x68k)
	       'Z'    passthrough ioctls

     n	       This numbers the ioctl within the group.  There may be only one n for a given t.  This is an unsigned 8 bit number.

     pt        This specifies the type of the passed parameter.  This one gets internally transformed to the size of the parameter, so for exam-
	       ple, if you want to pass a structure, then you have to specify that structure and not a pointer to it or sizeof(struct foo)

     In order for the new ioctl to be known to the system it is installed in either <sys/ioctl.h> or one of the files that are reached from
     <sys/ioctl.h>.

RETURN VALUES

     All ioctl() routines should return either 0 or a defined error code.  The use of magic numbers such as -1, to indicate that a given ioctl
     code was not handled is strongly discouraged.  The value -1 coincides with the historic value for ERESTART which was shown to produce user
     space code that never returned from a call to ioctl(2).

     For ioctl codes that are not handled by a given routine, the pseudo error value EPASSTHROUGH is provided.	EPASSTHROUGH indicates that no
     error occurred during processing (it did not fail), but neither was anything processed (it did not succeed).  This supersedes the use of
     either ENOTTY (which is an explicit failure) or -1 (which has no contextual meaning) as a return value.  ENOTTY will get passed directly back
     to user space and bypass any further processing by other ioctl layers.  Only code that wishes to suppress possible further processing of an
     ioctl code (e.g., the tty line discipline code) should return ENOTTY.  All other code should return EPASSTHROUGH, even if it knows that no
     other layers will be called upon.

     If the value EPASSTHROUGH is returned to sys_ioctl(), then it will there be changed to ENOTTY to be returned to user space, thereby providing
     the proper error notification to the application.

EXAMPLES

	   #define FOOIOCTL	   _IOWR('i', 23, int)

	   int a = 3;
	   error = ioctl(s, FOOICTL, &a);

     Within the ioctl()-routine of the driver, it can be then accessed like

	   driver_ioctl(..., u_long cmd, void *data)
	   {
		   ...
		   switch (cmd) {

		   case FOOIOCTL:
			   int *a = (int *)data;
			   printf(" Value passed: %d
", *a);
			   break;
		   }
	   }

NOTES

     Note that if you for example try to read information from an ethernet driver where the name of the card is included in the third argument
     (e.g., ioctl(s, READFROMETH, struct ifreq *)), then you have to use the _IOWR() form not the _IOR(), as passing the name of the card to the
     kernel already consists of writing data.

SEE ALSO

     ioctl(2)

BSD
								 December 11, 2010							       BSD