openbsd-src / lib / libc / sys / kqueue.2

.\"	$OpenBSD: kqueue.2,v 1.52 2025/05/10 09:44:39 visa Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2000 Jonathan Lemon
.\" All rights reserved.
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
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.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/sys/kqueue.2,v 1.18 2001/02/14 08:48:35 guido Exp $
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: May 10 2025 $
.Dt KQUEUE 2
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm kqueue ,
.Nm kqueue1 ,
.Nm kevent ,
.Nm EV_SET
.Nd kernel event notification mechanism
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/types.h
.In sys/event.h
.In sys/time.h
.Ft int
.Fn kqueue "void"
.Ft int
.Fn kevent "int kq" "const struct kevent *changelist" "int nchanges" "struct kevent *eventlist" "int nevents" "const struct timespec *timeout"
.Fn EV_SET "&kev" ident filter flags fflags data udata
.In sys/types.h
.In sys/event.h
.In sys/time.h
.In fcntl.h
.Ft int
.Fn kqueue1 "int flags"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Fn kqueue
provides a generic method of notifying the user when an event
happens or a condition holds, based on the results of small
pieces of kernel code termed
.Dq filters .
A kevent is identified by the (ident, filter) pair; there may only
be one unique kevent per kqueue.
.Pp
The filter is executed upon the initial registration of a kevent
in order to detect whether a preexisting condition is present, and is also
executed whenever an event is passed to the filter for evaluation.
If the filter determines that the condition should be reported,
then the kevent is placed on the kqueue for the user to retrieve.
.Pp
The filter is also run when the user attempts to retrieve the kevent
from the kqueue.
If the filter indicates that the condition that triggered
the event no longer holds, the kevent is removed from the kqueue and
is not returned.
.Pp
Multiple events which trigger the filter do not result in multiple
kevents being placed on the kqueue; instead, the filter will aggregate
the events into a single
.Vt struct kevent .
Calling
.Xr close 2
on a file descriptor will remove any kevents that reference the descriptor.
.Pp
.Fn kqueue
creates a new kernel event queue and returns a descriptor.
The queue is not inherited by a child created with
.Xr fork 2 .
Similarly, kqueues cannot be passed across UNIX-domain sockets.
.Pp
The
.Fn kqueue1
function is identical to
.Fn kqueue
except that the close-on-exec flag on the new file descriptor
is determined by the
.Dv O_CLOEXEC
flag
in the
.Fa flags
argument.
.Pp
.Fn kevent
is used to register events with the queue, and return any pending
events to the user.
.Fa changelist
is a pointer to an array of
.Vt kevent
structures, as defined in
.In sys/event.h .
All changes contained in the
.Fa changelist
are applied before any pending events are read from the queue.
.Fa nchanges
gives the size of
.Fa changelist .
.Fa eventlist
is a pointer to an array of
.Vt kevent
structures.
.Fa nevents
determines the size of
.Fa eventlist .
When
.Fa nevents
is zero,
.Fn kevent
will return immediately even if there is a
.Fa timeout
specified, unlike
.Xr select 2 .
If
.Fa timeout
is not
.Dv NULL ,
it specifies a maximum interval to wait
for an event, which will be interpreted as a
.Vt struct timespec .
If
.Fa timeout
is
.Dv NULL ,
.Fn kevent
waits indefinitely.
To effect a poll, the
.Fa timeout
argument should not be
.Dv NULL ,
pointing to a zero-valued
.Vt struct timespec .
The same array may be used for the
.Fa changelist
and
.Fa eventlist .
.Pp
.Fn EV_SET
is a macro which is provided for ease of initializing a
.Vt kevent
structure.
.Pp
The
.Vt kevent
structure is defined as:
.Bd -literal
struct kevent {
	uintptr_t   ident;	/* identifier for this event */
	short	    filter;	/* filter for event */
	u_short	    flags;	/* action flags for kqueue */
	u_int	    fflags;	/* filter flag value */
	int64_t	    data;	/* filter data value */
	void	   *udata;	/* opaque user data identifier */
};
.Ed
.Pp
The fields of
.Vt struct kevent
are:
.Bl -tag -width XXXfilter
.It Fa ident
Value used to identify this event.
The exact interpretation is determined by the attached filter,
but often is a file descriptor.
.It Fa filter
Identifies the kernel filter used to process this event.
The pre-defined system filters are described below.
.It Fa flags
Actions to perform on the event.
.It Fa fflags
Filter-specific flags.
.It Fa data
Filter-specific data value.
.It Fa udata
Opaque user-defined value passed through the kernel unchanged.
.El
.Pp
The
.Fa flags
field can contain the following values:
.Bl -tag -width XXXEV_ONESHOT
.It Dv EV_ADD
Adds the event to the kqueue.
Re-adding an existing event will modify the parameters of the original event,
and not result in a duplicate entry.
Adding an event automatically enables it, unless overridden by the
.Dv EV_DISABLE
flag.
.It Dv EV_ENABLE
Permit
.Fn kevent
to return the event if it is triggered.
.It Dv EV_DISABLE
Disable the event so
.Fn kevent
will not return it.
The filter itself is not disabled.
.It Dv EV_DISPATCH
Disable the event source immediately after delivery of an event.
See
.Dv EV_DISABLE
above.
.It Dv EV_DELETE
Removes the event from the kqueue.
Events which are attached to file descriptors are automatically deleted
on the last close of the descriptor.
.It Dv EV_RECEIPT
Causes
.Fn kevent
to return with
.Dv EV_ERROR
set without draining any pending events after updating events in the kqueue.
When a filter is successfully added, the
.Fa data
field will be zero.
This flag is useful for making bulk changes to a kqueue.
.It Dv EV_ONESHOT
Causes the event to return only the first occurrence of the filter
being triggered.
After the user retrieves the event from the kqueue, it is deleted.
.It Dv EV_CLEAR
After the event is retrieved by the user, its state is reset.
This is useful for filters which report state transitions
instead of the current state.
Note that some filters may automatically set this flag internally.
.It Dv EV_EOF
Filters may set this flag to indicate filter-specific EOF condition.
.It Dv EV_ERROR
See
.Sx RETURN VALUES
below.
.El
.Pp
The predefined system filters are listed below.
Arguments may be passed to and from the filter via the
.Fa fflags
and
.Fa data
fields in the
.Vt kevent
structure.
.Bl -tag -width EVFILT_SIGNAL
.It Dv EVFILT_READ
Takes a descriptor as the identifier, and returns whenever
there is data available to read.
The behavior of the filter is slightly different depending
on the descriptor type.
.Bl -tag -width 2n
.It Sockets
Sockets which have previously been passed to
.Xr listen 2
return when there is an incoming connection pending.
.Fa data
contains the size of the listen backlog.
.Pp
Other socket descriptors return when there is data to be read,
subject to the
.Dv SO_RCVLOWAT
value of the socket buffer.
This may be overridden with a per-filter low water mark at the
time the filter is added by setting the
.Dv NOTE_LOWAT
flag in
.Fa fflags ,
and specifying the new low water mark in
.Fa data .
On return,
.Fa data
contains the number of bytes in the socket buffer.
.Pp
If the read direction of the socket has shutdown, then the filter
also sets
.Dv EV_EOF
in
.Fa flags ,
and returns the socket error (if any) in
.Fa fflags .
It is possible for EOF to be returned (indicating the connection is gone)
while there is still data pending in the socket buffer.
.It Vnodes
Returns when the file pointer is not at the end of file.
.Fa data
contains the offset from current position to end of file,
and may be negative.
If
.Dv NOTE_EOF
is set in
.Fa fflags ,
.Fn kevent
will also return when the file pointer is at the end of file.
The end of file condition is indicated by the presence of
.Dv NOTE_EOF
in
.Fa fflags
on return.
.It "FIFOs, Pipes"
Returns when there is data to read;
.Fa data
contains the number of bytes available.
.Pp
When the last writer disconnects, the filter will set
.Dv EV_EOF
in
.Fa flags .
This may be cleared by passing in
.Dv EV_CLEAR ,
at which point the filter will resume waiting for data to become
available before returning.
.It "BPF devices"
Returns when the BPF buffer is full, the BPF timeout has expired, or
when the BPF has
.Dq immediate mode
enabled and there is any data to read;
.Fa data
contains the number of bytes available.
.El
.It Dv EVFILT_EXCEPT
Takes a descriptor as the identifier, and returns whenever one of the
specified exceptional conditions has occurred on the descriptor.
Conditions are specified in
.Fa fflags .
Currently, a filter can monitor the reception of out-of-band data
on a socket or pseudo terminal with
.Dv NOTE_OOB .
.It Dv EVFILT_WRITE
Takes a descriptor as the identifier, and returns whenever
it is possible to write to the descriptor.
For sockets, pipes, and FIFOs,
.Fa data
will contain the amount of space remaining in the write buffer.
The filter will set
.Dv EV_EOF
when the reader disconnects, and for the FIFO case,
this may be cleared by use of
.Dv EV_CLEAR .
Note that this filter is not supported for vnodes or BPF devices.
.Pp
For sockets, the low water mark and socket error handling is
identical to the
.Dv EVFILT_READ
case.
.\".It Dv EVFILT_AIO
.\"The sigevent portion of the AIO request is filled in, with
.\".Va sigev_notify_kqueue
.\"containing the descriptor of the kqueue that the event should
.\"be attached to,
.\".Va sigev_value
.\"containing the udata value, and
.\".Va sigev_notify
.\"set to
.\".Dv SIGEV_KEVENT .
.\"When the aio_* function is called, the event will be registered
.\"with the specified kqueue, and the
.\".Va ident
.\"argument set to the
.\".Li struct aiocb
.\"returned by the aio_* function.
.\"The filter returns under the same conditions as aio_error.
.\".Pp
.\"Alternatively, a kevent structure may be initialized, with
.\".Va ident
.\"containing the descriptor of the kqueue, and the
.\"address of the kevent structure placed in the
.\".Va aio_lio_opcode
.\"field of the AIO request.
.\"However, this approach will not work on architectures with 64-bit pointers,
.\"and should be considered deprecated.
.It Dv EVFILT_VNODE
Takes a file descriptor as the identifier and the events to watch for in
.Fa fflags ,
and returns when one or more of the requested events occurs on the descriptor.
The events to monitor are:
.Bl -tag -width XXNOTE_RENAME
.It Dv NOTE_DELETE
.Xr unlink 2
was called on the file referenced by the descriptor.
.It Dv NOTE_WRITE
A write occurred on the file referenced by the descriptor.
.It Dv NOTE_EXTEND
The file referenced by the descriptor was extended.
.It Dv NOTE_TRUNCATE
The file referenced by the descriptor was truncated.
.It Dv NOTE_ATTRIB
The file referenced by the descriptor had its attributes changed.
.It Dv NOTE_LINK
The link count on the file changed.
.It Dv NOTE_RENAME
The file referenced by the descriptor was renamed.
.It Dv NOTE_REVOKE
Access to the file was revoked via
.Xr revoke 2
or the underlying file system was unmounted.
.El
.Pp
On return,
.Fa fflags
contains the events which triggered the filter.
.It Dv EVFILT_PROC
Takes the process ID to monitor as the identifier and the events to watch for
in
.Fa fflags ,
and returns when the process performs one or more of the requested events.
If a process can normally see another process, it can attach an event to it.
The events to monitor are:
.Bl -tag -width XXNOTE_TRACKERR
.It Dv NOTE_EXIT
The process has exited.
The exit status will be stored in
.Fa data
in the same format as the status set by
.Xr wait 2 .
.It Dv NOTE_FORK
The process has called
.Xr fork 2 .
.It Dv NOTE_EXEC
The process has executed a new process via
.Xr execve 2
or similar call.
.It Dv NOTE_TRACK
Follow a process across
.Xr fork 2
calls.
The parent process will return with
.Dv NOTE_FORK
set in the
.Fa fflags
field, while the child process will return with
.Dv NOTE_CHILD
set in
.Fa fflags
and the parent PID in
.Fa data .
.It Dv NOTE_TRACKERR
This flag is returned if the system was unable to attach an event to
the child process, usually due to resource limitations.
.El
.Pp
On return,
.Fa fflags
contains the events which triggered the filter.
.It Dv EVFILT_SIGNAL
Takes the signal number to monitor as the identifier and returns
when the given signal is delivered to the process.
This coexists with the
.Xr signal 3
and
.Xr sigaction 2
facilities, and has a lower precedence.
The filter will record all attempts to deliver a signal to a process,
even if the signal has been marked as
.Dv SIG_IGN .
Event notification happens after normal signal delivery processing.
.Fa data
returns the number of times the signal has occurred since the last call to
.Fn kevent .
This filter automatically sets the
.Dv EV_CLEAR
flag internally.
.It Dv EVFILT_TIMER
Establishes an arbitrary timer identified by
.Fa ident .
When adding a timer,
.Fa data
specifies the timeout period in units described below or, if
.Dv NOTE_ABSTIME
is set in
.Va fflags ,
the absolute time at which the timer should fire.
The timer will repeat unless
.Dv EV_ONESHOT
is set in
.Va flags
or
.Dv NOTE_ABSTIME
is set in
.Va fflags .
On return,
.Fa data
contains the number of times the timeout has expired since the last call to
.Fn kevent .
This filter automatically sets
.Dv EV_CLEAR
in
.Va flags
for periodic timers.
Timers created with
.Dv NOTE_ABSTIME
remain activated on the kqueue once the absolute time has passed unless
.Dv EV_CLEAR
or
.Dv EV_ONESHOT
are also specified.
.Pp
The filter accepts the following flags in the
.Va fflags
argument:
.Bl -tag -width NOTE_MSECONDS
.It Dv NOTE_SECONDS
The timer value in
.Va data
is expressed in seconds.
.It Dv NOTE_MSECONDS
The timer value in
.Va data
is expressed in milliseconds.
.It Dv NOTE_USECONDS
The timer value in
.Va data
is expressed in microseconds.
.It Dv NOTE_NSECONDS
The timer value in
.Va data
is expressed in nanoseconds.
.It Dv NOTE_ABSTIME
The timer value is an absolute time with
.Dv CLOCK_REALTIME
as the reference clock.
.El
.Pp
Note that
.Dv NOTE_SECONDS ,
.Dv NOTE_MSECONDS ,
.Dv NOTE_USECONDS ,
and
.Dv NOTE_NSECONDS
are mutually exclusive; behavior is undefined if more than one are specified.
If a timer value unit is not specified, the default is
.Dv NOTE_MSECONDS .
.Pp
If an existing timer is re-added, the existing timer and related pending events
will be cancelled.
The timer will be re-started using the timeout period
.Fa data .
.It Dv EVFILT_DEVICE
Takes a descriptor as the identifier and the events to watch for in
.Fa fflags ,
and returns when one or more of the requested events occur on the
descriptor.
The events to monitor are:
.Bl -tag -width XXNOTE_CHANGE
.It Dv NOTE_CHANGE
A device change event has occurred,
e.g. an HDMI cable has been plugged in to a port.
.El
.Pp
On return,
.Fa fflags
contains the events which triggered the filter.
.It Dv EVFILT_USER
Establishes a user event identified by
.Va ident
which is not associated with any kernel mechanism but is triggered by
user level code.
The lower 24 bits of the
.Va fflags
may be used for user defined flags and manipulated using the following:
.Bl -tag -width XXNOTE_FFLAGSMASK
.It Dv NOTE_FFNOP
Ignore the input
.Va fflags .
.It Dv NOTE_FFAND
Bitwise AND
.Va fflags .
.It Dv NOTE_FFOR
Bitwise OR
.Va fflags .
.It Dv NOTE_FFCOPY
Copy
.Va fflags .
.It Dv NOTE_FFCTRLMASK
Control mask for
.Va fflags .
.It Dv NOTE_FFLAGSMASK
User defined flag mask for
.Va fflags .
.El
.Pp
A user event is triggered for output with the following:
.Bl -tag -width XXNOTE_FFLAGSMASK
.It Dv NOTE_TRIGGER
Cause the event to be triggered.
.El
.Pp
On return,
.Va fflags
contains the user defined flags in the lower 24 bits.
.El
.Sh RETURN VALUES
.Fn kqueue
and
.Fn kqueue1
create a new kernel event queue and returns a file descriptor.
If there was an error creating the kernel event queue, a value of -1 is
returned and
.Va errno
set.
.Pp
.Fn kevent
returns the number of events placed in the
.Fa eventlist ,
up to the value given by
.Fa nevents .
If an error occurs while processing an element of the
.Fa changelist
and there is enough room in the
.Fa eventlist ,
then the event will be placed in the
.Fa eventlist
with
.Dv EV_ERROR
set in
.Fa flags
and the system error in
.Fa data .
Otherwise, -1 will be returned, and
.Va errno
will be set to indicate the error condition.
If the time limit expires, then
.Fn kevent
returns 0.
.Sh ERRORS
The
.Fn kqueue
and
.Fn kqueue1
functions fail if:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er ENOMEM
The kernel failed to allocate enough memory for the kernel queue.
.It Bq Er EMFILE
The per-process descriptor table is full.
.It Bq Er ENFILE
The system file table is full.
.El
.Pp
In addition,
.Fn kqueue1
fails if:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EINVAL
.Fa flags
is invalid.
.El
.Pp
The
.Fn kevent
function fails if:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EACCES
The process does not have permission to register a filter.
.It Bq Er EFAULT
There was an error reading or writing the
.Vt kevent
structure.
.It Bq Er EBADF
The specified descriptor is invalid.
.It Bq Er EINTR
A signal was delivered before the timeout expired and before any
events were placed on the kqueue for return.
.It Bq Er EINVAL
The specified time limit or filter is invalid.
.It Bq Er ENOENT
The event could not be found to be modified or deleted.
.It Bq Er ENOMEM
No memory was available to register the event.
.It Bq Er ESRCH
The specified process to attach to does not exist.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr clock_gettime 2 ,
.Xr poll 2 ,
.Xr read 2 ,
.Xr select 2 ,
.Xr sigaction 2 ,
.Xr wait 2 ,
.Xr write 2 ,
.Xr signal 3
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn kqueue
and
.Fn kevent
functions first appeared in
.Fx 4.1
and have been available since
.Ox 2.9 .
.Sh AUTHORS
The
.Fn kqueue
system and this manual page were written by
.An Jonathan Lemon Aq Mt [e-mail] .