mlock (2)

NAME

       mlock - disable paging for some parts of memory

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/mman.h>

       int mlock(const void *addr, size_t len);

DESCRIPTION

       mlock disables paging for the memory in the range starting at addr with
       length len bytes. All pages which contain a part of the specified  mem-
       ory  range are guaranteed be resident in RAM when the mlock system call
       returns successfully and they are guaranteed to stay in RAM  until  the
       pages  are  unlocked  by  munlock  or  munlockall,  until the pages are
       unmapped via munmap, or until the process terminates or starts  another
       program  with exec.  Child processes do not inherit page locks across a
       fork.

       Memory locking has two  main  applications:  real-time  algorithms  and
       high-security data processing. Real-time applications require determin-
       istic timing, and, like scheduling, paging is one major cause of  unex-
       pected  program  execution  delays. Real-time applications will usually
       also switch to a real-time scheduler with sched_setscheduler.   Crypto-
       graphic  security  software often handles critical bytes like passwords
       or secret keys as data structures. As a result of paging, these secrets
       could  be  transfered  onto  a persistent swap store medium, where they
       might be accessible to the enemy long after the security  software  has
       erased the secrets in RAM and terminated.

       Memory  locks  do not stack, i.e., pages which have been locked several
       times by calls to mlock or mlockall will be unlocked by a  single  call
       to  munlock  for the corresponding range or by munlockall.  Pages which
       are mapped to several locations or by  several  processes  stay  locked
       into  RAM  as long as they are locked at least at one location or by at
       least one process.

       On POSIX systems on which mlock and munlock are available,  _POSIX_MEM-
       LOCK_RANGE  is  defined in <unistd.h> and the value PAGESIZE from <lim-
       its.h> indicates the number of bytes per page.

NOTES

       With the Linux system call, addr is automatically rounded down  to  the
       nearest  page boundary.  However, POSIX 1003.1-2001 allows an implemen-
       tation to require that addr is page aligned, so  portable  applications
       should ensure this.

RETURN VALUE

       On success, mlock returns zero.  On error, -1 is returned, errno is set
       appropriately, and no changes are made to  any  locks  in  the  address
       space of the process.

ERRORS

       ENOMEM Some  of  the  specified  address  range  does not correspond to
              mapped pages in the address space of the process or the  process
              tried to exceed the maximum number of allowed locked pages.

SEE ALSO

       mlockall(2), munlock(2), munlockall(2), munmap(2), setrlimit(2)

Linux 1.3.43                      1995-11-26                          mlock(2)