NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | VERSIONS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

REMAP_FILE_PAGES(2)       Linux Programmer's Manual      REMAP_FILE_PAGES(2)

NAME         top

       remap_file_pages - create a nonlinear file mapping

SYNOPSIS         top

       #define _GNU_SOURCE         /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <sys/mman.h>
       int remap_file_pages(void *addr, size_t size, int prot,
                            size_t pgoff, int flags);

DESCRIPTION         top

       Note: this system call was marked as deprecated starting with Linux
       3.16.  In Linux 4.0, the implementation was replaced by a slower in-
       kernel emulation.  Those few applications that use this system call
       should consider migrating to alternatives.  This change was made
       because the kernel code for this system call was complex, and it is
       believed to be little used or perhaps even completely unused.  While
       it had some use cases in database applications on 32-bit systems,
       those use cases don't exist on 64-bit systems.
       The remap_file_pages() system call is used to create a nonlinear
       mapping, that is, a mapping in which the pages of the file are mapped
       into a nonsequential order in memory.  The advantage of using
       remap_file_pages() over using repeated calls to mmap(2) is that the
       former approach does not require the kernel to create additional VMA
       (Virtual Memory Area) data structures.
       To create a nonlinear mapping we perform the following steps:
       1. Use mmap(2) to create a mapping (which is initially linear).  This
          mapping must be created with the MAP_SHARED flag.
       2. Use one or more calls to remap_file_pages() to rearrange the
          correspondence between the pages of the mapping and the pages of
          the file.  It is possible to map the same page of a file into
          multiple locations within the mapped region.
       The pgoff and size arguments specify the region of the file that is
       to be relocated within the mapping: pgoff is a file offset in units
       of the system page size; size is the length of the region in bytes.
       The addr argument serves two purposes.  First, it identifies the
       mapping whose pages we want to rearrange.  Thus, addr must be an
       address that falls within a region previously mapped by a call to
       mmap(2).  Second, addr specifies the address at which the file pages
       identified by pgoff and size will be placed.
       The values specified in addr and size should be multiples of the
       system page size.  If they are not, then the kernel rounds both
       values down to the nearest multiple of the page size.
       The prot argument must be specified as 0.
       The flags argument has the same meaning as for mmap(2), but all flags
       other than MAP_NONBLOCK are ignored.

RETURN VALUE         top

       On success, remap_file_pages() returns 0.  On error, -1 is returned,
       and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS         top

       EINVAL addr does not refer to a valid mapping created with the
              MAP_SHARED flag.
       EINVAL addr, size, prot, or pgoff is invalid.

VERSIONS         top

       The remap_file_pages() system call appeared in Linux 2.5.46; glibc
       support was added in version 2.3.3.

CONFORMING TO         top

       The remap_file_pages() system call is Linux-specific.

NOTES         top

       Since Linux 2.6.23, remap_file_pages() creates non-linear mappings
       only on in-memory filesystems such as tmpfs(5), hugetlbfs or ramfs.
       On filesystems with a backing store, remap_file_pages() is not much
       more efficient than using mmap(2) to adjust which parts of the file
       are mapped to which addresses.

SEE ALSO         top

       getpagesize(2), mmap(2), mmap2(2), mprotect(2), mremap(2), msync(2)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 4.12 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
       latest version of this page, can be found at
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux                            2016-12-12              REMAP_FILE_PAGES(2)

Pages that refer to this page: mincore(2)mmap(2)syscalls(2)