mlock(3C) Standard C Library Functions mlock(3C)
NAME
mlock, munlock - lock or unlock pages in memory
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/mman.h>
int mlock(caddr_t addr, size_t len);
int munlock(caddr_t addr, size_t len);
Standard conforming
#include <sys/mman.h>
int mlock(const void * addr, size_t len);
int munlock(const void * addr, size_t len);
DESCRIPTION
The mlock() function uses the mappings established for the address range [addr, addr + len) to identify pages to be locked in memory. If
the page identified by a mapping changes, such as occurs when a copy of a writable MAP_PRIVATE page is made upon the first store, the lock
will be transferred to the newly copied private page.
The munlock() function removes locks established with mlock().
A given page may be locked multiple times by executing an mlock() through different mappings. That is, if two different processes lock the
same page, then the page will remain locked until both processes remove their locks. However, within a given mapping, page locks do not
nest - multiple mlock() operations on the same address in the same process will all be removed with a single munlock(). Of course, a page
locked in one process and mapped in another (or visible through a different mapping in the locking process) is still locked in memory. This
fact can be used to create applications that do nothing other than lock important data in memory, thereby avoiding page I/O faults on ref-
erences from other processes in the system.
The contents of the locked pages will not be transferred to or from disk except when explicitly requested by one of the locking processes.
This guarantee applies only to the mapped data, and not to any associated data structures (file descriptors and on-disk metadata, among
others).
If the mapping through which an mlock() has been performed is removed, an munlock() is implicitly performed. An munlock() is also performed
implicitly when a page is deleted through file removal or truncation.
Locks established with mlock() are not inherited by a child process after a fork() and are not nested.
Attempts to mlock() more memory than a system-specific limit will fail.
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, the mlock() and munlock() functions return 0. Otherwise, no changes are made to any locks in the address
space of the process, the functions return -1 and set errno to indicate the error.
ERRORS
The mlock() and munlock() functions will fail if:
EINVAL The addr argument is not a multiple of the page size as returned by sysconf(3C).
ENOMEM Addresses in the range [addr, addr + len) are invalid for the address space of a process, or specify one or more pages which are
not mapped.
ENOSYS The system does not support this memory locking interface.
EPERM The {PRIV_PROC_LOCK_MEMORY} privilege is not asserted in the effective set of the calling process.
The mlock() function will fail if:
EAGAIN Some or all of the memory identified by the range [addr, addr + len) could not be locked because of insufficient system resources
or because of a limit or resource control on locked memory.
USAGE
Because of the impact on system resources, the use of mlock() and munlock() is restricted to users with the {PRIV_PROC_LOCK_MEMORY} privi-
lege.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Interface Stability |Standard |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|MT-Level |MT-Safe |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO
fork(2), memcntl(2), mmap(2), plock(3C), mlockall(3C), sysconf(3C), attributes(5), standards(5)
SunOS 5.11 10 Apr 2007 mlock(3C)