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1.\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 1992 Drew Eckhardt;
2.\" and Copyright (C) 1993 Michael Haardt, Ian Jackson.
3.\" and Copyright (C) 2008 Greg Banks
4.\" and Copyright (C) 2006, 2008, 2013, 2014 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
5.\"
6.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
7.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
8.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
9.\" preserved on all copies.
10.\"
11.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
12.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
13.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
14.\" permission notice identical to this one.
15.\"
16.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
17.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no
18.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
19.\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not
20.\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
21.\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
22.\" professionally.
23.\"
24.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
25.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
26.\" %%%LICENSE_END
27.\"
28.\" Modified 1993-07-21 by Rik Faith <faith@cs.unc.edu>
29.\" Modified 1994-08-21 by Michael Haardt
30.\" Modified 1996-04-13 by Andries Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl>
31.\" Modified 1996-05-13 by Thomas Koenig
32.\" Modified 1996-12-20 by Michael Haardt
33.\" Modified 1999-02-19 by Andries Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl>
34.\" Modified 1998-11-28 by Joseph S. Myers <jsm28@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
35.\" Modified 1999-06-03 by Michael Haardt
36.\" Modified 2002-05-07 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
37.\" Modified 2004-06-23 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
38.\" 2004-12-08, mtk, reordered flags list alphabetically
39.\" 2004-12-08, Martin Pool <mbp@sourcefrog.net> (& mtk), added O_NOATIME
40.\" 2007-09-18, mtk, Added description of O_CLOEXEC + other minor edits
41.\" 2008-01-03, mtk, with input from Trond Myklebust
42.\" <trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no> and Timo Sirainen <tss@iki.fi>
43.\" Rewrite description of O_EXCL.
44.\" 2008-01-11, Greg Banks <gnb@melbourne.sgi.com>: add more detail
45.\" on O_DIRECT.
46.\" 2008-02-26, Michael Haardt: Reorganized text for O_CREAT and mode
47.\"
48.\" FIXME . Apr 08: The next POSIX revision has O_EXEC, O_SEARCH, and
49.\" O_TTYINIT. Eventually these may need to be documented. --mtk
50.\"
51.TH OPEN 2 2020-02-09 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
52.SH NAME
53open, openat, creat \- open and possibly create a file
54.SH SYNOPSIS
55.nf
56.B #include <sys/types.h>
57.B #include <sys/stat.h>
58.B #include <fcntl.h>
59.PP
60.BI "int open(const char *" pathname ", int " flags );
61.BI "int open(const char *" pathname ", int " flags ", mode_t " mode );
62.PP
63.BI "int creat(const char *" pathname ", mode_t " mode );
64.PP
65.BI "int openat(int " dirfd ", const char *" pathname ", int " flags );
66.BI "int openat(int " dirfd ", const char *" pathname ", int " flags \
67", mode_t " mode );
68.PP
69/* Documented separately, in \fBopenat2\fP(2): */
70.BI "int openat2(int " dirfd ", const char *" pathname ,
71.BI " const struct open_how *" how ", size_t " size ");
72.fi
73.PP
74.in -4n
75Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
76.BR feature_test_macros (7)):
77.in
78.PP
79.BR openat ():
80.PD 0
81.ad l
82.RS 4
83.TP 4
84Since glibc 2.10:
85_POSIX_C_SOURCE\ >=\ 200809L
86.TP
87Before glibc 2.10:
88_ATFILE_SOURCE
89.RE
90.ad
91.PD
92.SH DESCRIPTION
93The
94.BR open ()
95system call opens the file specified by
96.IR pathname .
97If the specified file does not exist,
98it may optionally (if
99.B O_CREAT
100is specified in
101.IR flags )
102be created by
103.BR open ().
104.PP
105The return value of
106.BR open ()
107is a file descriptor, a small, nonnegative integer that is used
108in subsequent system calls
109.RB ( read "(2), " write "(2), " lseek "(2), " fcntl (2),
110etc.) to refer to the open file.
111The file descriptor returned by a successful call will be
112the lowest-numbered file descriptor not currently open for the process.
113.PP
114By default, the new file descriptor is set to remain open across an
115.BR execve (2)
116(i.e., the
117.B FD_CLOEXEC
118file descriptor flag described in
119.BR fcntl (2)
120is initially disabled); the
121.B O_CLOEXEC
122flag, described below, can be used to change this default.
123The file offset is set to the beginning of the file (see
124.BR lseek (2)).
125.PP
126A call to
127.BR open ()
128creates a new
129.IR "open file description" ,
130an entry in the system-wide table of open files.
131The open file description records the file offset and the file status flags
132(see below).
133A file descriptor is a reference to an open file description;
134this reference is unaffected if
135.I pathname
136is subsequently removed or modified to refer to a different file.
137For further details on open file descriptions, see NOTES.
138.PP
139The argument
140.I flags
141must include one of the following
142.IR "access modes" :
143.BR O_RDONLY ", " O_WRONLY ", or " O_RDWR .
144These request opening the file read-only, write-only, or read/write,
145respectively.
146.PP
147In addition, zero or more file creation flags and file status flags
148can be
149.RI bitwise- or 'd
150in
151.IR flags .
152The
153.I file creation flags
154are
155.BR O_CLOEXEC ,
156.BR O_CREAT ,
157.BR O_DIRECTORY ,
158.BR O_EXCL ,
159.BR O_NOCTTY ,
160.BR O_NOFOLLOW ,
161.BR O_TMPFILE ,
162and
163.BR O_TRUNC .
164The
165.I file status flags
166are all of the remaining flags listed below.
167.\" SUSv4 divides the flags into:
168.\" * Access mode
169.\" * File creation
170.\" * File status
171.\" * Other (O_CLOEXEC, O_DIRECTORY, O_NOFOLLOW)
172.\" though it's not clear what the difference between "other" and
173.\" "File creation" flags is. I raised an Aardvark to see if this
174.\" can be clarified in SUSv4; 10 Oct 2008.
175.\" http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.standards.posix.austin.general/64/focus=67
176.\" TC1 (balloted in 2013), resolved this, so that those three constants
177.\" are also categorized" as file status flags.
178.\"
179The distinction between these two groups of flags is that
180the file creation flags affect the semantics of the open operation itself,
181while the file status flags affect the semantics of subsequent I/O operations.
182The file status flags can be retrieved and (in some cases)
183modified; see
184.BR fcntl (2)
185for details.
186.PP
187The full list of file creation flags and file status flags is as follows:
188.TP
189.B O_APPEND
190The file is opened in append mode.
191Before each
192.BR write (2),
193the file offset is positioned at the end of the file,
194as if with
195.BR lseek (2).
196The modification of the file offset and the write operation
197are performed as a single atomic step.
198.IP
199.B O_APPEND
200may lead to corrupted files on NFS filesystems if more than one process
201appends data to a file at once.
202.\" For more background, see
203.\" http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=453946
204.\" http://nfs.sourceforge.net/
205This is because NFS does not support
206appending to a file, so the client kernel has to simulate it, which
207can't be done without a race condition.
208.TP
209.B O_ASYNC
210Enable signal-driven I/O:
211generate a signal
212.RB ( SIGIO
213by default, but this can be changed via
214.BR fcntl (2))
215when input or output becomes possible on this file descriptor.
216This feature is available only for terminals, pseudoterminals,
217sockets, and (since Linux 2.6) pipes and FIFOs.
218See
219.BR fcntl (2)
220for further details.
221See also BUGS, below.
222.TP
223.BR O_CLOEXEC " (since Linux 2.6.23)"
224.\" NOTE! several other man pages refer to this text
225Enable the close-on-exec flag for the new file descriptor.
226.\" FIXME . for later review when Issue 8 is one day released...
227.\" POSIX proposes to fix many APIs that provide hidden FDs
228.\" http://austingroupbugs.net/tag_view_page.php?tag_id=8
229.\" http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=368
230Specifying this flag permits a program to avoid additional
231.BR fcntl (2)
232.B F_SETFD
233operations to set the
234.B FD_CLOEXEC
235flag.
236.IP
237Note that the use of this flag is essential in some multithreaded programs,
238because using a separate
239.BR fcntl (2)
240.B F_SETFD
241operation to set the
242.B FD_CLOEXEC
243flag does not suffice to avoid race conditions
244where one thread opens a file descriptor and
245attempts to set its close-on-exec flag using
246.BR fcntl (2)
247at the same time as another thread does a
248.BR fork (2)
249plus
250.BR execve (2).
251Depending on the order of execution,
252the race may lead to the file descriptor returned by
253.BR open ()
254being unintentionally leaked to the program executed by the child process
255created by
256.BR fork (2).
257(This kind of race is in principle possible for any system call
258that creates a file descriptor whose close-on-exec flag should be set,
259and various other Linux system calls provide an equivalent of the
260.BR O_CLOEXEC
261flag to deal with this problem.)
262.\" This flag fixes only one form of the race condition;
263.\" The race can also occur with, for example, file descriptors
264.\" returned by accept(), pipe(), etc.
265.TP
266.B O_CREAT
267If
268.I pathname
269does not exist, create it as a regular file.
270.IP
271The owner (user ID) of the new file is set to the effective user ID
272of the process.
273.IP
274The group ownership (group ID) of the new file is set either to
275the effective group ID of the process (System V semantics)
276or to the group ID of the parent directory (BSD semantics).
277On Linux, the behavior depends on whether the
278set-group-ID mode bit is set on the parent directory:
279if that bit is set, then BSD semantics apply;
280otherwise, System V semantics apply.
281For some filesystems, the behavior also depends on the
282.I bsdgroups
283and
284.I sysvgroups
285mount options described in
286.BR mount (8).
287.\" As at 2.6.25, bsdgroups is supported by ext2, ext3, ext4, and
288.\" XFS (since 2.6.14).
289.RS
290.PP
291The
292.I mode
293argument specifies the file mode bits be applied when a new file is created.
294This argument must be supplied when
295.B O_CREAT
296or
297.B O_TMPFILE
298is specified in
299.IR flags ;
300if neither
301.B O_CREAT
302nor
303.B O_TMPFILE
304is specified, then
305.I mode
306is ignored.
307The effective mode is modified by the process's
308.I umask
309in the usual way: in the absence of a default ACL, the mode of the
310created file is
311.IR "(mode\ &\ ~umask)" .
312Note that this mode applies only to future accesses of the
313newly created file; the
314.BR open ()
315call that creates a read-only file may well return a read/write
316file descriptor.
317.PP
318The following symbolic constants are provided for
319.IR mode :
320.TP 9
321.B S_IRWXU
32200700 user (file owner) has read, write, and execute permission
323.TP
324.B S_IRUSR
32500400 user has read permission
326.TP
327.B S_IWUSR
32800200 user has write permission
329.TP
330.B S_IXUSR
33100100 user has execute permission
332.TP
333.B S_IRWXG
33400070 group has read, write, and execute permission
335.TP
336.B S_IRGRP
33700040 group has read permission
338.TP
339.B S_IWGRP
34000020 group has write permission
341.TP
342.B S_IXGRP
34300010 group has execute permission
344.TP
345.B S_IRWXO
34600007 others have read, write, and execute permission
347.TP
348.B S_IROTH
34900004 others have read permission
350.TP
351.B S_IWOTH
35200002 others have write permission
353.TP
354.B S_IXOTH
35500001 others have execute permission
356.RE
357.IP
358According to POSIX, the effect when other bits are set in
359.I mode
360is unspecified.
361On Linux, the following bits are also honored in
362.IR mode :
363.RS
364.TP 9
365.B S_ISUID
3660004000 set-user-ID bit
367.TP
368.B S_ISGID
3690002000 set-group-ID bit (see
370.BR inode (7)).
371.TP
372.B S_ISVTX
3730001000 sticky bit (see
374.BR inode (7)).
375.RE
376.TP
377.BR O_DIRECT " (since Linux 2.4.10)"
378Try to minimize cache effects of the I/O to and from this file.
379In general this will degrade performance, but it is useful in
380special situations, such as when applications do their own caching.
381File I/O is done directly to/from user-space buffers.
382The
383.B O_DIRECT
384flag on its own makes an effort to transfer data synchronously,
385but does not give the guarantees of the
386.B O_SYNC
387flag that data and necessary metadata are transferred.
388To guarantee synchronous I/O,
389.B O_SYNC
390must be used in addition to
391.BR O_DIRECT .
392See NOTES below for further discussion.
393.IP
394A semantically similar (but deprecated) interface for block devices
395is described in
396.BR raw (8).
397.TP
398.B O_DIRECTORY
399If \fIpathname\fP is not a directory, cause the open to fail.
400.\" But see the following and its replies:
401.\" http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=112748702800001&r=1&w=2
402.\" [PATCH] open: O_DIRECTORY and O_CREAT together should fail
403.\" O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT causes O_DIRECTORY to be ignored.
404This flag was added in kernel version 2.1.126, to
405avoid denial-of-service problems if
406.BR opendir (3)
407is called on a
408FIFO or tape device.
409.TP
410.B O_DSYNC
411Write operations on the file will complete according to the requirements of
412synchronized I/O
413.I data
414integrity completion.
415.IP
416By the time
417.BR write (2)
418(and similar)
419return, the output data
420has been transferred to the underlying hardware,
421along with any file metadata that would be required to retrieve that data
422(i.e., as though each
423.BR write (2)
424was followed by a call to
425.BR fdatasync (2)).
426.IR "See NOTES below" .
427.TP
428.B O_EXCL
429Ensure that this call creates the file:
430if this flag is specified in conjunction with
431.BR O_CREAT ,
432and
433.I pathname
434already exists, then
435.BR open ()
436fails with the error
437.BR EEXIST .
438.IP
439When these two flags are specified, symbolic links are not followed:
440.\" POSIX.1-2001 explicitly requires this behavior.
441if
442.I pathname
443is a symbolic link, then
444.BR open ()
445fails regardless of where the symbolic link points.
446.IP
447In general, the behavior of
448.B O_EXCL
449is undefined if it is used without
450.BR O_CREAT .
451There is one exception: on Linux 2.6 and later,
452.B O_EXCL
453can be used without
454.B O_CREAT
455if
456.I pathname
457refers to a block device.
458If the block device is in use by the system (e.g., mounted),
459.BR open ()
460fails with the error
461.BR EBUSY .
462.IP
463On NFS,
464.B O_EXCL
465is supported only when using NFSv3 or later on kernel 2.6 or later.
466In NFS environments where
467.B O_EXCL
468support is not provided, programs that rely on it
469for performing locking tasks will contain a race condition.
470Portable programs that want to perform atomic file locking using a lockfile,
471and need to avoid reliance on NFS support for
472.BR O_EXCL ,
473can create a unique file on
474the same filesystem (e.g., incorporating hostname and PID), and use
475.BR link (2)
476to make a link to the lockfile.
477If
478.BR link (2)
479returns 0, the lock is successful.
480Otherwise, use
481.BR stat (2)
482on the unique file to check if its link count has increased to 2,
483in which case the lock is also successful.
484.TP
485.B O_LARGEFILE
486(LFS)
487Allow files whose sizes cannot be represented in an
488.I off_t
489(but can be represented in an
490.IR off64_t )
491to be opened.
492The
493.B _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE
494macro must be defined
495(before including
496.I any
497header files)
498in order to obtain this definition.
499Setting the
500.B _FILE_OFFSET_BITS
501feature test macro to 64 (rather than using
502.BR O_LARGEFILE )
503is the preferred
504method of accessing large files on 32-bit systems (see
505.BR feature_test_macros (7)).
506.TP
507.BR O_NOATIME " (since Linux 2.6.8)"
508Do not update the file last access time
509.RI ( st_atime
510in the inode)
511when the file is
512.BR read (2).
513.IP
514This flag can be employed only if one of the following conditions is true:
515.RS
516.IP * 3
517The effective UID of the process
518.\" Strictly speaking: the filesystem UID
519matches the owner UID of the file.
520.IP *
521The calling process has the
522.BR CAP_FOWNER
523capability in its user namespace and
524the owner UID of the file has a mapping in the namespace.
525.RE
526.IP
527This flag is intended for use by indexing or backup programs,
528where its use can significantly reduce the amount of disk activity.
529This flag may not be effective on all filesystems.
530One example is NFS, where the server maintains the access time.
531.\" The O_NOATIME flag also affects the treatment of st_atime
532.\" by mmap() and readdir(2), MTK, Dec 04.
533.TP
534.B O_NOCTTY
535If
536.I pathname
537refers to a terminal device\(emsee
538.BR tty (4)\(emit
539will not become the process's controlling terminal even if the
540process does not have one.
541.TP
542.B O_NOFOLLOW
543If the trailing component (i.e., basename) of
544.I pathname
545is a symbolic link, then the open fails, with the error
546.BR ELOOP .
547Symbolic links in earlier components of the pathname will still be
548followed.
549(Note that the
550.B ELOOP
551error that can occur in this case is indistinguishable from the case where
552an open fails because there are too many symbolic links found
553while resolving components in the prefix part of the pathname.)
554.IP
555This flag is a FreeBSD extension, which was added to Linux in version 2.1.126,
556and has subsequently been standardized in POSIX.1-2008.
557.IP
558See also
559.BR O_PATH
560below.
561.\" The headers from glibc 2.0.100 and later include a
562.\" definition of this flag; \fIkernels before 2.1.126 will ignore it if
563.\" used\fP.
564.TP
565.BR O_NONBLOCK " or " O_NDELAY
566When possible, the file is opened in nonblocking mode.
567Neither the
568.BR open ()
569nor any subsequent I/O operations on the file descriptor which is
570returned will cause the calling process to wait.
571.IP
572Note that the setting of this flag has no effect on the operation of
573.BR poll (2),
574.BR select (2),
575.BR epoll (7),
576and similar,
577since those interfaces merely inform the caller about whether
578a file descriptor is "ready",
579meaning that an I/O operation performed on
580the file descriptor with the
581.B O_NONBLOCK
582flag
583.I clear
584would not block.
585.IP
586Note that this flag has no effect for regular files and block devices;
587that is, I/O operations will (briefly) block when device activity
588is required, regardless of whether
589.B O_NONBLOCK
590is set.
591Since
592.B O_NONBLOCK
593semantics might eventually be implemented,
594applications should not depend upon blocking behavior
595when specifying this flag for regular files and block devices.
596.IP
597For the handling of FIFOs (named pipes), see also
598.BR fifo (7).
599For a discussion of the effect of
600.B O_NONBLOCK
601in conjunction with mandatory file locks and with file leases, see
602.BR fcntl (2).
603.TP
604.BR O_PATH " (since Linux 2.6.39)"
605.\" commit 1abf0c718f15a56a0a435588d1b104c7a37dc9bd
606.\" commit 326be7b484843988afe57566b627fb7a70beac56
607.\" commit 65cfc6722361570bfe255698d9cd4dccaf47570d
608.\"
609.\" http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.man/2790/focus=3496
610.\" Subject: Re: [PATCH] open(2): document O_PATH
611.\" Newsgroups: gmane.linux.man, gmane.linux.kernel
612.\"
613Obtain a file descriptor that can be used for two purposes:
614to indicate a location in the filesystem tree and
615to perform operations that act purely at the file descriptor level.
616The file itself is not opened, and other file operations (e.g.,
617.BR read (2),
618.BR write (2),
619.BR fchmod (2),
620.BR fchown (2),
621.BR fgetxattr (2),
622.BR ioctl (2),
623.BR mmap (2))
624fail with the error
625.BR EBADF .
626.IP
627The following operations
628.I can
629be performed on the resulting file descriptor:
630.RS
631.IP * 3
632.BR close (2).
633.IP *
634.BR fchdir (2),
635if the file descriptor refers to a directory
636(since Linux 3.5).
637.\" commit 332a2e1244bd08b9e3ecd378028513396a004a24
638.IP *
639.BR fstat (2)
640(since Linux 3.6).
641.IP *
642.\" fstat(): commit 55815f70147dcfa3ead5738fd56d3574e2e3c1c2
643.BR fstatfs (2)
644(since Linux 3.12).
645.\" fstatfs(): commit 9d05746e7b16d8565dddbe3200faa1e669d23bbf
646.IP *
647Duplicating the file descriptor
648.RB ( dup (2),
649.BR fcntl (2)
650.BR F_DUPFD ,
651etc.).
652.IP *
653Getting and setting file descriptor flags
654.RB ( fcntl (2)
655.BR F_GETFD
656and
657.BR F_SETFD ).
658.IP *
659Retrieving open file status flags using the
660.BR fcntl (2)
661.BR F_GETFL
662operation: the returned flags will include the bit
663.BR O_PATH .
664.IP *
665Passing the file descriptor as the
666.IR dirfd
667argument of
668.BR openat ()
669and the other "*at()" system calls.
670This includes
671.BR linkat (2)
672with
673.BR AT_EMPTY_PATH
674(or via procfs using
675.BR AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW )
676even if the file is not a directory.
677.IP *
678Passing the file descriptor to another process via a UNIX domain socket
679(see
680.BR SCM_RIGHTS
681in
682.BR unix (7)).
683.RE
684.IP
685When
686.B O_PATH
687is specified in
688.IR flags ,
689flag bits other than
690.BR O_CLOEXEC ,
691.BR O_DIRECTORY ,
692and
693.BR O_NOFOLLOW
694are ignored.
695.IP
696Opening a file or directory with the
697.B O_PATH
698flag requires no permissions on the object itself
699(but does require execute permission on the directories in the path prefix).
700Depending on the subsequent operation,
701a check for suitable file permissions may be performed (e.g.,
702.BR fchdir (2)
703requires execute permission on the directory referred to
704by its file descriptor argument).
705By contrast,
706obtaining a reference to a filesystem object by opening it with the
707.B O_RDONLY
708flag requires that the caller have read permission on the object,
709even when the subsequent operation (e.g.,
710.BR fchdir (2),
711.BR fstat (2))
712does not require read permission on the object.
713.IP
714If
715.I pathname
716is a symbolic link and the
717.BR O_NOFOLLOW
718flag is also specified,
719then the call returns a file descriptor referring to the symbolic link.
720This file descriptor can be used as the
721.I dirfd
722argument in calls to
723.BR fchownat (2),
724.BR fstatat (2),
725.BR linkat (2),
726and
727.BR readlinkat (2)
728with an empty pathname to have the calls operate on the symbolic link.
729.IP
730If
731.I pathname
732refers to an automount point that has not yet been triggered, so no
733other filesystem is mounted on it, then the call returns a file
734descriptor referring to the automount directory without triggering a mount.
735.BR fstatfs (2)
736can then be used to determine if it is, in fact, an untriggered
737automount point
738.RB ( ".f_type == AUTOFS_SUPER_MAGIC" ).
739.IP
740One use of
741.B O_PATH
742for regular files is to provide the equivalent of POSIX.1's
743.B O_EXEC
744functionality.
745This permits us to open a file for which we have execute
746permission but not read permission, and then execute that file,
747with steps something like the following:
748.IP
749.in +4n
750.EX
751char buf[PATH_MAX];
752fd = open("some_prog", O_PATH);
753snprintf(buf, PATH_MAX, "/proc/self/fd/%d", fd);
754execl(buf, "some_prog", (char *) NULL);
755.EE
756.in
757.IP
758An
759.B O_PATH
760file descriptor can also be passed as the argument of
761.BR fexecve (3).
762.TP
763.B O_SYNC
764Write operations on the file will complete according to the requirements of
765synchronized I/O
766.I file
767integrity completion
768(by contrast with the
769synchronized I/O
770.I data
771integrity completion
772provided by
773.BR O_DSYNC .)
774.IP
775By the time
776.BR write (2)
777(or similar)
778returns, the output data and associated file metadata
779have been transferred to the underlying hardware
780(i.e., as though each
781.BR write (2)
782was followed by a call to
783.BR fsync (2)).
784.IR "See NOTES below" .
785.TP
786.BR O_TMPFILE " (since Linux 3.11)"
787.\" commit 60545d0d4610b02e55f65d141c95b18ccf855b6e
788.\" commit f4e0c30c191f87851c4a53454abb55ee276f4a7e
789.\" commit bb458c644a59dbba3a1fe59b27106c5e68e1c4bd
790Create an unnamed temporary regular file.
791The
792.I pathname
793argument specifies a directory;
794an unnamed inode will be created in that directory's filesystem.
795Anything written to the resulting file will be lost when
796the last file descriptor is closed, unless the file is given a name.
797.IP
798.B O_TMPFILE
799must be specified with one of
800.B O_RDWR
801or
802.B O_WRONLY
803and, optionally,
804.BR O_EXCL .
805If
806.B O_EXCL
807is not specified, then
808.BR linkat (2)
809can be used to link the temporary file into the filesystem, making it
810permanent, using code like the following:
811.IP
812.in +4n
813.EX
814char path[PATH_MAX];
815fd = open("/path/to/dir", O_TMPFILE | O_RDWR,
816 S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);
817
818/* File I/O on 'fd'... */
819
820linkat(fd, NULL, AT_FDCWD, "/path/for/file", AT_EMPTY_PATH);
821
822/* If the caller doesn't have the CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH
823 capability (needed to use AT_EMPTY_PATH with linkat(2)),
824 and there is a proc(5) filesystem mounted, then the
825 linkat(2) call above can be replaced with:
826
827snprintf(path, PATH_MAX, "/proc/self/fd/%d", fd);
828linkat(AT_FDCWD, path, AT_FDCWD, "/path/for/file",
829 AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW);
830*/
831.EE
832.in
833.IP
834In this case,
835the
836.BR open ()
837.I mode
838argument determines the file permission mode, as with
839.BR O_CREAT .
840.IP
841Specifying
842.B O_EXCL
843in conjunction with
844.B O_TMPFILE
845prevents a temporary file from being linked into the filesystem
846in the above manner.
847(Note that the meaning of
848.B O_EXCL
849in this case is different from the meaning of
850.B O_EXCL
851otherwise.)
852.IP
853There are two main use cases for
854.\" Inspired by http://lwn.net/Articles/559147/
855.BR O_TMPFILE :
856.RS
857.IP * 3
858Improved
859.BR tmpfile (3)
860functionality: race-free creation of temporary files that
861(1) are automatically deleted when closed;
862(2) can never be reached via any pathname;
863(3) are not subject to symlink attacks; and
864(4) do not require the caller to devise unique names.
865.IP *
866Creating a file that is initially invisible, which is then populated
867with data and adjusted to have appropriate filesystem attributes
868.RB ( fchown (2),
869.BR fchmod (2),
870.BR fsetxattr (2),
871etc.)
872before being atomically linked into the filesystem
873in a fully formed state (using
874.BR linkat (2)
875as described above).
876.RE
877.IP
878.B O_TMPFILE
879requires support by the underlying filesystem;
880only a subset of Linux filesystems provide that support.
881In the initial implementation, support was provided in
882the ext2, ext3, ext4, UDF, Minix, and shmem filesystems.
883.\" To check for support, grep for "tmpfile" in kernel sources
884Support for other filesystems has subsequently been added as follows:
885XFS (Linux 3.15);
886.\" commit 99b6436bc29e4f10e4388c27a3e4810191cc4788
887.\" commit ab29743117f9f4c22ac44c13c1647fb24fb2bafe
888Btrfs (Linux 3.16);
889.\" commit ef3b9af50bfa6a1f02cd7b3f5124b712b1ba3e3c
890F2FS (Linux 3.16);
891.\" commit 50732df02eefb39ab414ef655979c2c9b64ad21c
892and ubifs (Linux 4.9)
893.TP
894.B O_TRUNC
895If the file already exists and is a regular file and the access mode allows
896writing (i.e., is
897.B O_RDWR
898or
899.BR O_WRONLY )
900it will be truncated to length 0.
901If the file is a FIFO or terminal device file, the
902.B O_TRUNC
903flag is ignored.
904Otherwise, the effect of
905.B O_TRUNC
906is unspecified.
907.SS creat()
908A call to
909.BR creat ()
910is equivalent to calling
911.BR open ()
912with
913.I flags
914equal to
915.BR O_CREAT|O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC .
916.SS openat()
917The
918.BR openat ()
919system call operates in exactly the same way as
920.BR open (),
921except for the differences described here.
922.PP
923If the pathname given in
924.I pathname
925is relative, then it is interpreted relative to the directory
926referred to by the file descriptor
927.I dirfd
928(rather than relative to the current working directory of
929the calling process, as is done by
930.BR open ()
931for a relative pathname).
932.PP
933If
934.I pathname
935is relative and
936.I dirfd
937is the special value
938.BR AT_FDCWD ,
939then
940.I pathname
941is interpreted relative to the current working
942directory of the calling process (like
943.BR open ()).
944.PP
945If
946.I pathname
947is absolute, then
948.I dirfd
949is ignored.
950.\"
951.SS openat2(2)
952The
953.BR openat2 (2)
954system call is an extension of
955.BR openat (),
956and provides a superset of the features of
957.BR openat ().
958It is documented separately, in
959.BR openat2 (2).
960.SH RETURN VALUE
961.BR open (),
962.BR openat (),
963and
964.BR creat ()
965return the new file descriptor (a nonnegative integer),
966or \-1 if an error occurred
967(in which case,
968.I errno
969is set appropriately).
970.SH ERRORS
971.BR open (),
972.BR openat (),
973and
974.BR creat ()
975can fail with the following errors:
976.TP
977.B EACCES
978The requested access to the file is not allowed, or search permission
979is denied for one of the directories in the path prefix of
980.IR pathname ,
981or the file did not exist yet and write access to the parent directory
982is not allowed.
983(See also
984.BR path_resolution (7).)
985.TP
986.B EACCES
987.\" commit 30aba6656f61ed44cba445a3c0d38b296fa9e8f5
988Where
989.B O_CREAT
990is specified, the
991.I protected_fifos
992or
993.I protected_regular
994sysctl is enabled, the file already exists and is a FIFO or regular file, the
995owner of the file is neither the current user nor the owner of the
996containing directory, and the containing directory is both world- or
997group-writable and sticky.
998For details, see the descriptions of
999.IR /proc/sys/fs/protected_fifos
1000and
1001.IR /proc/sys/fs/protected_regular
1002in
1003.BR proc (5).
1004.TP
1005.B EDQUOT
1006Where
1007.B O_CREAT
1008is specified, the file does not exist, and the user's quota of disk
1009blocks or inodes on the filesystem has been exhausted.
1010.TP
1011.B EEXIST
1012.I pathname
1013already exists and
1014.BR O_CREAT " and " O_EXCL
1015were used.
1016.TP
1017.B EFAULT
1018.I pathname
1019points outside your accessible address space.
1020.TP
1021.B EFBIG
1022See
1023.BR EOVERFLOW .
1024.TP
1025.B EINTR
1026While blocked waiting to complete an open of a slow device
1027(e.g., a FIFO; see
1028.BR fifo (7)),
1029the call was interrupted by a signal handler; see
1030.BR signal (7).
1031.TP
1032.B EINVAL
1033The filesystem does not support the
1034.BR O_DIRECT
1035flag.
1036See
1037.BR NOTES
1038for more information.
1039.TP
1040.B EINVAL
1041Invalid value in
1042.\" In particular, __O_TMPFILE instead of O_TMPFILE
1043.IR flags .
1044.TP
1045.B EINVAL
1046.B O_TMPFILE
1047was specified in
1048.IR flags ,
1049but neither
1050.B O_WRONLY
1051nor
1052.B O_RDWR
1053was specified.
1054.TP
1055.B EINVAL
1056.B O_CREAT
1057was specified in
1058.I flags
1059and the final component ("basename") of the new file's
1060.I pathname
1061is invalid
1062(e.g., it contains characters not permitted by the underlying filesystem).
1063.TP
1064.B EINVAL
1065The final component ("basename") of
1066.I pathname
1067is invalid
1068(e.g., it contains characters not permitted by the underlying filesystem).
1069.TP
1070.B EISDIR
1071.I pathname
1072refers to a directory and the access requested involved writing
1073(that is,
1074.B O_WRONLY
1075or
1076.B O_RDWR
1077is set).
1078.TP
1079.B EISDIR
1080.I pathname
1081refers to an existing directory,
1082.B O_TMPFILE
1083and one of
1084.B O_WRONLY
1085or
1086.B O_RDWR
1087were specified in
1088.IR flags ,
1089but this kernel version does not provide the
1090.B O_TMPFILE
1091functionality.
1092.TP
1093.B ELOOP
1094Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving
1095.IR pathname .
1096.TP
1097.B ELOOP
1098.I pathname
1099was a symbolic link, and
1100.I flags
1101specified
1102.BR O_NOFOLLOW
1103but not
1104.BR O_PATH .
1105.TP
1106.B EMFILE
1107The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors has been reached
1108(see the description of
1109.BR RLIMIT_NOFILE
1110in
1111.BR getrlimit (2)).
1112.TP
1113.B ENAMETOOLONG
1114.I pathname
1115was too long.
1116.TP
1117.B ENFILE
1118The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been reached.
1119.TP
1120.B ENODEV
1121.I pathname
1122refers to a device special file and no corresponding device exists.
1123(This is a Linux kernel bug; in this situation
1124.B ENXIO
1125must be returned.)
1126.TP
1127.B ENOENT
1128.B O_CREAT
1129is not set and the named file does not exist.
1130.TP
1131.B ENOENT
1132A directory component in
1133.I pathname
1134does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
1135.TP
1136.B ENOENT
1137.I pathname
1138refers to a nonexistent directory,
1139.B O_TMPFILE
1140and one of
1141.B O_WRONLY
1142or
1143.B O_RDWR
1144were specified in
1145.IR flags ,
1146but this kernel version does not provide the
1147.B O_TMPFILE
1148functionality.
1149.TP
1150.B ENOMEM
1151The named file is a FIFO,
1152but memory for the FIFO buffer can't be allocated because
1153the per-user hard limit on memory allocation for pipes has been reached
1154and the caller is not privileged; see
1155.BR pipe (7).
1156.TP
1157.B ENOMEM
1158Insufficient kernel memory was available.
1159.TP
1160.B ENOSPC
1161.I pathname
1162was to be created but the device containing
1163.I pathname
1164has no room for the new file.
1165.TP
1166.B ENOTDIR
1167A component used as a directory in
1168.I pathname
1169is not, in fact, a directory, or \fBO_DIRECTORY\fP was specified and
1170.I pathname
1171was not a directory.
1172.TP
1173.B ENXIO
1174.BR O_NONBLOCK " | " O_WRONLY
1175is set, the named file is a FIFO, and
1176no process has the FIFO open for reading.
1177.TP
1178.B ENXIO
1179The file is a device special file and no corresponding device exists.
1180.TP
1181.B ENXIO
1182The file is a UNIX domain socket.
1183.TP
1184.BR EOPNOTSUPP
1185The filesystem containing
1186.I pathname
1187does not support
1188.BR O_TMPFILE .
1189.TP
1190.B EOVERFLOW
1191.I pathname
1192refers to a regular file that is too large to be opened.
1193The usual scenario here is that an application compiled
1194on a 32-bit platform without
1195.I -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
1196tried to open a file whose size exceeds
1197.I (1<<31)-1
1198bytes;
1199see also
1200.B O_LARGEFILE
1201above.
1202This is the error specified by POSIX.1;
1203in kernels before 2.6.24, Linux gave the error
1204.B EFBIG
1205for this case.
1206.\" See http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7253
1207.\" "Open of a large file on 32-bit fails with EFBIG, should be EOVERFLOW"
1208.\" Reported 2006-10-03
1209.TP
1210.B EPERM
1211The
1212.B O_NOATIME
1213flag was specified, but the effective user ID of the caller
1214.\" Strictly speaking, it's the filesystem UID... (MTK)
1215did not match the owner of the file and the caller was not privileged.
1216.TP
1217.B EPERM
1218The operation was prevented by a file seal; see
1219.BR fcntl (2).
1220.TP
1221.B EROFS
1222.I pathname
1223refers to a file on a read-only filesystem and write access was
1224requested.
1225.TP
1226.B ETXTBSY
1227.I pathname
1228refers to an executable image which is currently being executed and
1229write access was requested.
1230.TP
1231.B ETXTBSY
1232.I pathname
1233refers to a file that is currently in use as a swap file, and the
1234.B O_TRUNC
1235flag was specified.
1236.TP
1237.B ETXTBSY
1238.I pathname
1239refers to a file that is currently being read by the kernel (e.g. for
1240module/firmware loading), and write access was requested.
1241.TP
1242.B EWOULDBLOCK
1243The
1244.B O_NONBLOCK
1245flag was specified, and an incompatible lease was held on the file
1246(see
1247.BR fcntl (2)).
1248.PP
1249The following additional errors can occur for
1250.BR openat ():
1251.TP
1252.B EBADF
1253.I dirfd
1254is not a valid file descriptor.
1255.TP
1256.B ENOTDIR
1257.I pathname
1258is a relative pathname and
1259.I dirfd
1260is a file descriptor referring to a file other than a directory.
1261.SH VERSIONS
1262.BR openat ()
1263was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16;
1264library support was added to glibc in version 2.4.
1265.SH CONFORMING TO
1266.BR open (),
1267.BR creat ()
1268SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
1269.PP
1270.BR openat ():
1271POSIX.1-2008.
1272.PP
1273.BR openat2 (2)
1274is Linux-specific.
1275.PP
1276The
1277.BR O_DIRECT ,
1278.BR O_NOATIME ,
1279.BR O_PATH ,
1280and
1281.BR O_TMPFILE
1282flags are Linux-specific.
1283One must define
1284.B _GNU_SOURCE
1285to obtain their definitions.
1286.PP
1287The
1288.BR O_CLOEXEC ,
1289.BR O_DIRECTORY ,
1290and
1291.BR O_NOFOLLOW
1292flags are not specified in POSIX.1-2001,
1293but are specified in POSIX.1-2008.
1294Since glibc 2.12, one can obtain their definitions by defining either
1295.B _POSIX_C_SOURCE
1296with a value greater than or equal to 200809L or
1297.BR _XOPEN_SOURCE
1298with a value greater than or equal to 700.
1299In glibc 2.11 and earlier, one obtains the definitions by defining
1300.BR _GNU_SOURCE .
1301.PP
1302As noted in
1303.BR feature_test_macros (7),
1304feature test macros such as
1305.BR _POSIX_C_SOURCE ,
1306.BR _XOPEN_SOURCE ,
1307and
1308.B _GNU_SOURCE
1309must be defined before including
1310.I any
1311header files.
1312.SH NOTES
1313Under Linux, the
1314.B O_NONBLOCK
1315flag is sometimes used in cases where one wants to open
1316but does not necessarily have the intention to read or write.
1317For example,
1318this may be used to open a device in order to get a file descriptor
1319for use with
1320.BR ioctl (2).
1321.PP
1322The (undefined) effect of
1323.B O_RDONLY | O_TRUNC
1324varies among implementations.
1325On many systems the file is actually truncated.
1326.\" Linux 2.0, 2.5: truncate
1327.\" Solaris 5.7, 5.8: truncate
1328.\" Irix 6.5: truncate
1329.\" Tru64 5.1B: truncate
1330.\" HP-UX 11.22: truncate
1331.\" FreeBSD 4.7: truncate
1332.PP
1333Note that
1334.BR open ()
1335can open device special files, but
1336.BR creat ()
1337cannot create them; use
1338.BR mknod (2)
1339instead.
1340.PP
1341If the file is newly created, its
1342.IR st_atime ,
1343.IR st_ctime ,
1344.I st_mtime
1345fields
1346(respectively, time of last access, time of last status change, and
1347time of last modification; see
1348.BR stat (2))
1349are set
1350to the current time, and so are the
1351.I st_ctime
1352and
1353.I st_mtime
1354fields of the
1355parent directory.
1356Otherwise, if the file is modified because of the
1357.B O_TRUNC
1358flag, its
1359.I st_ctime
1360and
1361.I st_mtime
1362fields are set to the current time.
1363.PP
1364The files in the
1365.I /proc/[pid]/fd
1366directory show the open file descriptors of the process with the PID
1367.IR pid .
1368The files in the
1369.I /proc/[pid]/fdinfo
1370directory show even more information about these file descriptors.
1371See
1372.BR proc (5)
1373for further details of both of these directories.
1374.PP
1375The Linux header file
1376.B <asm/fcntl.h>
1377doesn't define
1378.BR O_ASYNC ;
1379the (BSD-derived)
1380.B FASYNC
1381synonym is defined instead.
1382.\"
1383.\"
1384.SS Open file descriptions
1385The term open file description is the one used by POSIX to refer to the
1386entries in the system-wide table of open files.
1387In other contexts, this object is
1388variously also called an "open file object",
1389a "file handle", an "open file table entry",
1390or\(emin kernel-developer parlance\(ema
1391.IR "struct file" .
1392.PP
1393When a file descriptor is duplicated (using
1394.BR dup (2)
1395or similar),
1396the duplicate refers to the same open file description
1397as the original file descriptor,
1398and the two file descriptors consequently share
1399the file offset and file status flags.
1400Such sharing can also occur between processes:
1401a child process created via
1402.BR fork (2)
1403inherits duplicates of its parent's file descriptors,
1404and those duplicates refer to the same open file descriptions.
1405.PP
1406Each
1407.BR open ()
1408of a file creates a new open file description;
1409thus, there may be multiple open file descriptions
1410corresponding to a file inode.
1411.PP
1412On Linux, one can use the
1413.BR kcmp (2)
1414.B KCMP_FILE
1415operation to test whether two file descriptors
1416(in the same process or in two different processes)
1417refer to the same open file description.
1418.\"
1419.\"
1420.SS Synchronized I/O
1421The POSIX.1-2008 "synchronized I/O" option
1422specifies different variants of synchronized I/O,
1423and specifies the
1424.BR open ()
1425flags
1426.BR O_SYNC ,
1427.BR O_DSYNC ,
1428and
1429.BR O_RSYNC
1430for controlling the behavior.
1431Regardless of whether an implementation supports this option,
1432it must at least support the use of
1433.BR O_SYNC
1434for regular files.
1435.PP
1436Linux implements
1437.BR O_SYNC
1438and
1439.BR O_DSYNC ,
1440but not
1441.BR O_RSYNC .
1442Somewhat incorrectly, glibc defines
1443.BR O_RSYNC
1444to have the same value as
1445.BR O_SYNC .
1446.RB ( O_RSYNC
1447is defined in the Linux header file
1448.I <asm/fcntl.h>
1449on HP PA-RISC, but it is not used.)
1450.PP
1451.BR O_SYNC
1452provides synchronized I/O
1453.I file
1454integrity completion,
1455meaning write operations will flush data and all associated metadata
1456to the underlying hardware.
1457.BR O_DSYNC
1458provides synchronized I/O
1459.I data
1460integrity completion,
1461meaning write operations will flush data
1462to the underlying hardware,
1463but will only flush metadata updates that are required
1464to allow a subsequent read operation to complete successfully.
1465Data integrity completion can reduce the number of disk operations
1466that are required for applications that don't need the guarantees
1467of file integrity completion.
1468.PP
1469To understand the difference between the two types of completion,
1470consider two pieces of file metadata:
1471the file last modification timestamp
1472.RI ( st_mtime )
1473and the file length.
1474All write operations will update the last file modification timestamp,
1475but only writes that add data to the end of the
1476file will change the file length.
1477The last modification timestamp is not needed to ensure that
1478a read completes successfully, but the file length is.
1479Thus,
1480.BR O_DSYNC
1481would only guarantee to flush updates to the file length metadata
1482(whereas
1483.BR O_SYNC
1484would also always flush the last modification timestamp metadata).
1485.PP
1486Before Linux 2.6.33, Linux implemented only the
1487.BR O_SYNC
1488flag for
1489.BR open ().
1490However, when that flag was specified,
1491most filesystems actually provided the equivalent of synchronized I/O
1492.I data
1493integrity completion (i.e.,
1494.BR O_SYNC
1495was actually implemented as the equivalent of
1496.BR O_DSYNC ).
1497.PP
1498Since Linux 2.6.33, proper
1499.BR O_SYNC
1500support is provided.
1501However, to ensure backward binary compatibility,
1502.BR O_DSYNC
1503was defined with the same value as the historical
1504.BR O_SYNC ,
1505and
1506.BR O_SYNC
1507was defined as a new (two-bit) flag value that includes the
1508.BR O_DSYNC
1509flag value.
1510This ensures that applications compiled against
1511new headers get at least
1512.BR O_DSYNC
1513semantics on pre-2.6.33 kernels.
1514.\"
1515.SS C library/kernel differences
1516Since version 2.26,
1517the glibc wrapper function for
1518.BR open ()
1519employs the
1520.BR openat ()
1521system call, rather than the kernel's
1522.BR open ()
1523system call.
1524For certain architectures, this is also true in glibc versions before 2.26.
1525.\"
1526.SS NFS
1527There are many infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS, affecting
1528amongst others
1529.BR O_SYNC " and " O_NDELAY .
1530.PP
1531On NFS filesystems with UID mapping enabled,
1532.BR open ()
1533may
1534return a file descriptor but, for example,
1535.BR read (2)
1536requests are denied
1537with \fBEACCES\fP.
1538This is because the client performs
1539.BR open ()
1540by checking the
1541permissions, but UID mapping is performed by the server upon
1542read and write requests.
1543.\"
1544.\"
1545.SS FIFOs
1546Opening the read or write end of a FIFO blocks until the other
1547end is also opened (by another process or thread).
1548See
1549.BR fifo (7)
1550for further details.
1551.\"
1552.\"
1553.SS File access mode
1554Unlike the other values that can be specified in
1555.IR flags ,
1556the
1557.I "access mode"
1558values
1559.BR O_RDONLY ", " O_WRONLY ", and " O_RDWR
1560do not specify individual bits.
1561Rather, they define the low order two bits of
1562.IR flags ,
1563and are defined respectively as 0, 1, and 2.
1564In other words, the combination
1565.B "O_RDONLY | O_WRONLY"
1566is a logical error, and certainly does not have the same meaning as
1567.BR O_RDWR .
1568.PP
1569Linux reserves the special, nonstandard access mode 3 (binary 11) in
1570.I flags
1571to mean:
1572check for read and write permission on the file and return a file descriptor
1573that can't be used for reading or writing.
1574This nonstandard access mode is used by some Linux drivers to return a
1575file descriptor that is to be used only for device-specific
1576.BR ioctl (2)
1577operations.
1578.\" See for example util-linux's disk-utils/setfdprm.c
1579.\" For some background on access mode 3, see
1580.\" http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/653123
1581.\" "[RFC] correct flags to f_mode conversion in __dentry_open"
1582.\" LKML, 12 Mar 2008
1583.\"
1584.\"
1585.SS Rationale for openat() and other "directory file descriptor" APIs
1586.BR openat ()
1587and the other system calls and library functions that take
1588a directory file descriptor argument
1589(i.e.,
1590.BR execveat (2),
1591.BR faccessat (2),
1592.BR fanotify_mark (2),
1593.BR fchmodat (2),
1594.BR fchownat (2),
1595.BR fspick (2),
1596.BR fstatat (2),
1597.BR futimesat (2),
1598.BR linkat (2),
1599.BR mkdirat (2),
1600.BR move_mount (2),
1601.BR mknodat (2),
1602.BR name_to_handle_at (2),
1603.BR open_tree (2),
1604.BR openat2 (2),
1605.BR readlinkat (2),
1606.BR renameat (2),
1607.BR statx (2),
1608.BR symlinkat (2),
1609.BR unlinkat (2),
1610.BR utimensat (2),
1611.BR mkfifoat (3),
1612and
1613.BR scandirat (3))
1614address two problems with the older interfaces that preceded them.
1615Here, the explanation is in terms of the
1616.BR openat ()
1617call, but the rationale is analogous for the other interfaces.
1618.PP
1619First,
1620.BR openat ()
1621allows an application to avoid race conditions that could
1622occur when using
1623.BR open ()
1624to open files in directories other than the current working directory.
1625These race conditions result from the fact that some component
1626of the directory prefix given to
1627.BR open ()
1628could be changed in parallel with the call to
1629.BR open ().
1630Suppose, for example, that we wish to create the file
1631.I dir1/dir2/xxx.dep
1632if the file
1633.I dir1/dir2/xxx
1634exists.
1635The problem is that between the existence check and the file-creation step,
1636.I dir1
1637or
1638.I dir2
1639(which might be symbolic links)
1640could be modified to point to a different location.
1641Such races can be avoided by
1642opening a file descriptor for the target directory,
1643and then specifying that file descriptor as the
1644.I dirfd
1645argument of (say)
1646.BR fstatat (2)
1647and
1648.BR openat ().
1649The use of the
1650.I dirfd
1651file descriptor also has other benefits:
1652.IP * 3
1653the file descriptor is a stable reference to the directory,
1654even if the directory is renamed; and
1655.IP *
1656the open file descriptor prevents the underlying filesystem from
1657being dismounted,
1658just as when a process has a current working directory on a filesystem.
1659.PP
1660Second,
1661.BR openat ()
1662allows the implementation of a per-thread "current working
1663directory", via file descriptor(s) maintained by the application.
1664(This functionality can also be obtained by tricks based
1665on the use of
1666.IR /proc/self/fd/ dirfd,
1667but less efficiently.)
1668.PP
1669The
1670.I dirfd
1671argument for these APIs can be obtained by using
1672.BR open ()
1673or
1674.BR openat ()
1675to open a directory (with either the
1676.BR O_RDONLY
1677or the
1678.BR O_PATH
1679flag).
1680Alternatively, such a file descriptor can be obtained by applying
1681.BR dirfd (3)
1682to a directory stream created using
1683.BR opendir (3).
1684.\"
1685.\"
1686.SS O_DIRECT
1687.PP
1688The
1689.B O_DIRECT
1690flag may impose alignment restrictions on the length and address
1691of user-space buffers and the file offset of I/Os.
1692In Linux alignment
1693restrictions vary by filesystem and kernel version and might be
1694absent entirely.
1695However there is currently no filesystem\-independent
1696interface for an application to discover these restrictions for a given
1697file or filesystem.
1698Some filesystems provide their own interfaces
1699for doing so, for example the
1700.B XFS_IOC_DIOINFO
1701operation in
1702.BR xfsctl (3).
1703.PP
1704Under Linux 2.4, transfer sizes, and the alignment of the user buffer
1705and the file offset must all be multiples of the logical block size
1706of the filesystem.
1707Since Linux 2.6.0, alignment to the logical block size of the
1708underlying storage (typically 512 bytes) suffices.
1709The logical block size can be determined using the
1710.BR ioctl (2)
1711.B BLKSSZGET
1712operation or from the shell using the command:
1713.PP
1714.EX
1715 blockdev \-\-getss
1716.EE
1717.PP
1718.B O_DIRECT
1719I/Os should never be run concurrently with the
1720.BR fork (2)
1721system call,
1722if the memory buffer is a private mapping
1723(i.e., any mapping created with the
1724.BR mmap (2)
1725.BR MAP_PRIVATE
1726flag;
1727this includes memory allocated on the heap and statically allocated buffers).
1728Any such I/Os, whether submitted via an asynchronous I/O interface or from
1729another thread in the process,
1730should be completed before
1731.BR fork (2)
1732is called.
1733Failure to do so can result in data corruption and undefined behavior in
1734parent and child processes.
1735This restriction does not apply when the memory buffer for the
1736.B O_DIRECT
1737I/Os was created using
1738.BR shmat (2)
1739or
1740.BR mmap (2)
1741with the
1742.B MAP_SHARED
1743flag.
1744Nor does this restriction apply when the memory buffer has been advised as
1745.B MADV_DONTFORK
1746with
1747.BR madvise (2),
1748ensuring that it will not be available
1749to the child after
1750.BR fork (2).
1751.PP
1752The
1753.B O_DIRECT
1754flag was introduced in SGI IRIX, where it has alignment
1755restrictions similar to those of Linux 2.4.
1756IRIX has also a
1757.BR fcntl (2)
1758call to query appropriate alignments, and sizes.
1759FreeBSD 4.x introduced
1760a flag of the same name, but without alignment restrictions.
1761.PP
1762.B O_DIRECT
1763support was added under Linux in kernel version 2.4.10.
1764Older Linux kernels simply ignore this flag.
1765Some filesystems may not implement the flag, in which case
1766.BR open ()
1767fails with the error
1768.B EINVAL
1769if it is used.
1770.PP
1771Applications should avoid mixing
1772.B O_DIRECT
1773and normal I/O to the same file,
1774and especially to overlapping byte regions in the same file.
1775Even when the filesystem correctly handles the coherency issues in
1776this situation, overall I/O throughput is likely to be slower than
1777using either mode alone.
1778Likewise, applications should avoid mixing
1779.BR mmap (2)
1780of files with direct I/O to the same files.
1781.PP
1782The behavior of
1783.B O_DIRECT
1784with NFS will differ from local filesystems.
1785Older kernels, or
1786kernels configured in certain ways, may not support this combination.
1787The NFS protocol does not support passing the flag to the server, so
1788.B O_DIRECT
1789I/O will bypass the page cache only on the client; the server may
1790still cache the I/O.
1791The client asks the server to make the I/O
1792synchronous to preserve the synchronous semantics of
1793.BR O_DIRECT .
1794Some servers will perform poorly under these circumstances, especially
1795if the I/O size is small.
1796Some servers may also be configured to
1797lie to clients about the I/O having reached stable storage; this
1798will avoid the performance penalty at some risk to data integrity
1799in the event of server power failure.
1800The Linux NFS client places no alignment restrictions on
1801.B O_DIRECT
1802I/O.
1803.PP
1804In summary,
1805.B O_DIRECT
1806is a potentially powerful tool that should be used with caution.
1807It is recommended that applications treat use of
1808.B O_DIRECT
1809as a performance option which is disabled by default.
1810.SH BUGS
1811Currently, it is not possible to enable signal-driven
1812I/O by specifying
1813.B O_ASYNC
1814when calling
1815.BR open ();
1816use
1817.BR fcntl (2)
1818to enable this flag.
1819.\" FIXME . Check bugzilla report on open(O_ASYNC)
1820.\" See http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5993
1821.PP
1822One must check for two different error codes,
1823.B EISDIR
1824and
1825.BR ENOENT ,
1826when trying to determine whether the kernel supports
1827.B O_TMPFILE
1828functionality.
1829.PP
1830When both
1831.B O_CREAT
1832and
1833.B O_DIRECTORY
1834are specified in
1835.IR flags
1836and the file specified by
1837.I pathname
1838does not exist,
1839.BR open ()
1840will create a regular file (i.e.,
1841.B O_DIRECTORY
1842is ignored).
1843.SH SEE ALSO
1844.BR chmod (2),
1845.BR chown (2),
1846.BR close (2),
1847.BR dup (2),
1848.BR fcntl (2),
1849.BR link (2),
1850.BR lseek (2),
1851.BR mknod (2),
1852.BR mmap (2),
1853.BR mount (2),
1854.BR openat2 (2),
1855.BR open_by_handle_at (2),
1856.BR read (2),
1857.BR socket (2),
1858.BR stat (2),
1859.BR umask (2),
1860.BR unlink (2),
1861.BR write (2),
1862.BR fopen (3),
1863.BR acl (5),
1864.BR fifo (7),
1865.BR inode (7),
1866.BR path_resolution (7),
1867.BR symlink (7)