1 Mandatory File Locking For The Linux Operating System
3 Andy Walker <andy@lysaker.kvaerner.no>
6 (Updated September 2007)
8 0. Why you should avoid mandatory locking
9 -----------------------------------------
11 The Linux implementation is prey to a number of difficult-to-fix race
12 conditions which in practice make it not dependable:
14 - The write system call checks for a mandatory lock only once
15 at its start. It is therefore possible for a lock request to
16 be granted after this check but before the data is modified.
17 A process may then see file data change even while a mandatory
19 - Similarly, an exclusive lock may be granted on a file after
20 the kernel has decided to proceed with a read, but before the
21 read has actually completed, and the reading process may see
22 the file data in a state which should not have been visible
24 - Similar races make the claimed mutual exclusion between lock
25 and mmap similarly unreliable.
27 1. What is mandatory locking?
28 ------------------------------
30 Mandatory locking is kernel enforced file locking, as opposed to the more usual
31 cooperative file locking used to guarantee sequential access to files among
32 processes. File locks are applied using the flock() and fcntl() system calls
33 (and the lockf() library routine which is a wrapper around fcntl().) It is
34 normally a process' responsibility to check for locks on a file it wishes to
35 update, before applying its own lock, updating the file and unlocking it again.
36 The most commonly used example of this (and in the case of sendmail, the most
37 troublesome) is access to a user's mailbox. The mail user agent and the mail
38 transfer agent must guard against updating the mailbox at the same time, and
39 prevent reading the mailbox while it is being updated.
41 In a perfect world all processes would use and honour a cooperative, or
42 "advisory" locking scheme. However, the world isn't perfect, and there's
43 a lot of poorly written code out there.
45 In trying to address this problem, the designers of System V UNIX came up
46 with a "mandatory" locking scheme, whereby the operating system kernel would
47 block attempts by a process to write to a file that another process holds a
48 "read" -or- "shared" lock on, and block attempts to both read and write to a
49 file that a process holds a "write " -or- "exclusive" lock on.
51 The System V mandatory locking scheme was intended to have as little impact as
52 possible on existing user code. The scheme is based on marking individual files
53 as candidates for mandatory locking, and using the existing fcntl()/lockf()
54 interface for applying locks just as if they were normal, advisory locks.
56 Note 1: In saying "file" in the paragraphs above I am actually not telling
57 the whole truth. System V locking is based on fcntl(). The granularity of
58 fcntl() is such that it allows the locking of byte ranges in files, in addition
59 to entire files, so the mandatory locking rules also have byte level
62 Note 2: POSIX.1 does not specify any scheme for mandatory locking, despite
63 borrowing the fcntl() locking scheme from System V. The mandatory locking
64 scheme is defined by the System V Interface Definition (SVID) Version 3.
66 2. Marking a file for mandatory locking
67 ---------------------------------------
69 A file is marked as a candidate for mandatory locking by setting the group-id
70 bit in its file mode but removing the group-execute bit. This is an otherwise
71 meaningless combination, and was chosen by the System V implementors so as not
72 to break existing user programs.
74 Note that the group-id bit is usually automatically cleared by the kernel when
75 a setgid file is written to. This is a security measure. The kernel has been
76 modified to recognize the special case of a mandatory lock candidate and to
77 refrain from clearing this bit. Similarly the kernel has been modified not
78 to run mandatory lock candidates with setgid privileges.
80 3. Available implementations
81 ----------------------------
83 I have considered the implementations of mandatory locking available with
84 SunOS 4.1.x, Solaris 2.x and HP-UX 9.x.
86 Generally I have tried to make the most sense out of the behaviour exhibited
87 by these three reference systems. There are many anomalies.
89 All the reference systems reject all calls to open() for a file on which
90 another process has outstanding mandatory locks. This is in direct
91 contravention of SVID 3, which states that only calls to open() with the
92 O_TRUNC flag set should be rejected. The Linux implementation follows the SVID
93 definition, which is the "Right Thing", since only calls with O_TRUNC can
94 modify the contents of the file.
96 HP-UX even disallows open() with O_TRUNC for a file with advisory locks, not
97 just mandatory locks. That would appear to contravene POSIX.1.
99 mmap() is another interesting case. All the operating systems mentioned
100 prevent mandatory locks from being applied to an mmap()'ed file, but HP-UX
101 also disallows advisory locks for such a file. SVID actually specifies the
102 paranoid HP-UX behaviour.
104 In my opinion only MAP_SHARED mappings should be immune from locking, and then
105 only from mandatory locks - that is what is currently implemented.
107 SunOS is so hopeless that it doesn't even honour the O_NONBLOCK flag for
108 mandatory locks, so reads and writes to locked files always block when they
109 should return EAGAIN.
111 I'm afraid that this is such an esoteric area that the semantics described
112 below are just as valid as any others, so long as the main points seem to
118 1. Mandatory locks can only be applied via the fcntl()/lockf() locking
119 interface - in other words the System V/POSIX interface. BSD style
120 locks using flock() never result in a mandatory lock.
122 2. If a process has locked a region of a file with a mandatory read lock, then
123 other processes are permitted to read from that region. If any of these
124 processes attempts to write to the region it will block until the lock is
125 released, unless the process has opened the file with the O_NONBLOCK
126 flag in which case the system call will return immediately with the error
129 3. If a process has locked a region of a file with a mandatory write lock, all
130 attempts to read or write to that region block until the lock is released,
131 unless a process has opened the file with the O_NONBLOCK flag in which case
132 the system call will return immediately with the error status EAGAIN.
134 4. Calls to open() with O_TRUNC, or to creat(), on a existing file that has
135 any mandatory locks owned by other processes will be rejected with the
138 5. Attempts to apply a mandatory lock to a file that is memory mapped and
139 shared (via mmap() with MAP_SHARED) will be rejected with the error status
142 6. Attempts to create a shared memory map of a file (via mmap() with MAP_SHARED)
143 that has any mandatory locks in effect will be rejected with the error status
146 5. Which system calls are affected?
147 -----------------------------------
149 Those which modify a file's contents, not just the inode. That gives read(),
150 write(), readv(), writev(), open(), creat(), mmap(), truncate() and
151 ftruncate(). truncate() and ftruncate() are considered to be "write" actions
152 for the purposes of mandatory locking.
154 The affected region is usually defined as stretching from the current position
155 for the total number of bytes read or written. For the truncate calls it is
156 defined as the bytes of a file removed or added (we must also consider bytes
157 added, as a lock can specify just "the whole file", rather than a specific
160 Note 3: I may have overlooked some system calls that need mandatory lock
161 checking in my eagerness to get this code out the door. Please let me know, or
162 better still fix the system calls yourself and submit a patch to me or Linus.
167 Not even root can override a mandatory lock, so runaway processes can wreak
168 havoc if they lock crucial files. The way around it is to change the file
169 permissions (remove the setgid bit) before trying to read or write to it.
170 Of course, that might be a bit tricky if the system is hung :-(
projects / linux-2.6 / blob