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EPOLL(7)                                                                Linux Programmer's Manual                                                               EPOLL(7)

NAME
       epoll - I/O event notification facility

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/epoll.h>

DESCRIPTION
       The  epoll  API performs a similar task to poll(2): monitoring multiple file descriptors to see if I/O is possible on any of them.  The epoll API can be used eiā€
       ther as an edge-triggered or a level-triggered interface and scales well to large numbers of watched file descriptors.

       The central concept of the epoll API is the epoll instance, an in-kernel data structure which, from a user-space perspective, can be considered  as  a  container
       for two lists:

       ā€¢ The interest list (sometimes also called the epoll set): the set of file descriptors that the process has registered an interest in monitoring.

       ā€¢ The  ready list: the set of file descriptors that are "ready" for I/O.  The ready list is a subset of (or, more precisely, a set of references to) the file deā€
         scriptors in the interest list.  The ready list is dynamically populated by the kernel as a result of I/O activity on those file descriptors.

       The following system calls are provided to create and manage an epoll instance:

       ā€¢ epoll_create(2) creates a new epoll instance and returns a file descriptor referring to that instance.  (The more recent epoll_create1(2) extends the functionā€
         ality of epoll_create(2).)

       ā€¢ Interest in particular file descriptors is then registered via epoll_ctl(2), which adds items to the interest list of the epoll instance.

       ā€¢ epoll_wait(2)  waits  for  I/O events, blocking the calling thread if no events are currently available.  (This system call can be thought of as fetching items
         from the ready list of the epoll instance.)

   Level-triggered and edge-triggered
       The epoll event distribution interface is able to behave both as edge-triggered (ET) and as level-triggered (LT).  The difference between the two mechanisms  can
       be described as follows.  Suppose that this scenario happens:

       1. The file descriptor that represents the read side of a pipe (rfd) is registered on the epoll instance.

       2. A pipe writer writes 2 kB of data on the write side of the pipe.

       3. A call to epoll_wait(2) is done that will return rfd as a ready file descriptor.

       4. The pipe reader reads 1 kB of data from rfd.

       5. A call to epoll_wait(2) is done.

       If  the rfd file descriptor has been added to the epoll interface using the EPOLLET (edge-triggered) flag, the call to epoll_wait(2) done in step 5 will probably
       hang despite the available data still present in the file input buffer; meanwhile the remote peer might be expecting a response based  on  the  data  it  already
       sent.   The reason for this is that edge-triggered mode delivers events only when changes occur on the monitored file descriptor.  So, in step 5 the caller might
       end up waiting for some data that is already present inside the input buffer.  In the above example, an event on rfd will be generated because of the write  done
       in  2  and the event is consumed in 3.  Since the read operation done in 4 does not consume the whole buffer data, the call to epoll_wait(2) done in step 5 might
       block indefinitely.

       An application that employs the EPOLLET flag should use nonblocking file descriptors to avoid having a blocking read or write starve a task that is handling mulā€
       tiple file descriptors.  The suggested way to use epoll as an edge-triggered (EPOLLET) interface is as follows:

       a) with nonblocking file descriptors; and

       b) by waiting for an event only after read(2) or write(2) return EAGAIN.

       By  contrast,  when  used as a level-triggered interface (the default, when EPOLLET is not specified), epoll is simply a faster poll(2), and can be used wherever
       the latter is used since it shares the same semantics.

       Since even with edge-triggered epoll, multiple events can be generated upon receipt of multiple chunks of data, the caller has the option to  specify  the  EPOLā€
       LONESHOT  flag,  to  tell epoll to disable the associated file descriptor after the receipt of an event with epoll_wait(2).  When the EPOLLONESHOT flag is speciā€
       fied, it is the caller's responsibility to rearm the file descriptor using epoll_ctl(2) with EPOLL_CTL_MOD.

       If multiple threads (or processes, if child processes have inherited the epoll file descriptor across fork(2)) are blocked in epoll_wait(2) waiting on  the  same
       epoll  file descriptor and a file descriptor in the interest list that is marked for edge-triggered (EPOLLET) notification becomes ready, just one of the threads
       (or processes) is awoken from epoll_wait(2).  This provides a useful optimization for avoiding "thundering herd" wake-ups in some scenarios.

   Interaction with autosleep
       If the system is in autosleep mode via /sys/power/autosleep and an event happens which wakes the device from sleep, the device driver will keep the device  awake
       only until that event is queued.  To keep the device awake until the event has been processed, it is necessary to use the epoll_ctl(2) EPOLLWAKEUP flag.

       When  the  EPOLLWAKEUP  flag  is set in the events field for a struct epoll_event, the system will be kept awake from the moment the event is queued, through the
       epoll_wait(2) call which returns the event until the subsequent epoll_wait(2) call.  If the event should keep the system awake beyond that time, then a  separate
       wake_lock should be taken before the second epoll_wait(2) call.

   /proc interfaces
       The following interfaces can be used to limit the amount of kernel memory consumed by epoll:

       /proc/sys/fs/epoll/max_user_watches (since Linux 2.6.28)
              This  specifies  a limit on the total number of file descriptors that a user can register across all epoll instances on the system.  The limit is per real
              user ID.  Each registered file descriptor costs roughly 90 bytes on a 32-bit kernel, and roughly 160 bytes on a 64-bit  kernel.   Currently,  the  default
              value for max_user_watches is 1/25 (4%) of the available low memory, divided by the registration cost in bytes.

   Example for suggested usage
       While  the usage of epoll when employed as a level-triggered interface does have the same semantics as poll(2), the edge-triggered usage requires more clarificaā€
       tion to avoid stalls in the application event loop.  In this example, listener is a nonblocking  socket  on  which  listen(2)  has  been  called.   The  function
       do_use_fd()  uses  the new ready file descriptor until EAGAIN is returned by either read(2) or write(2).  An event-driven state machine application should, after
       having received EAGAIN, record its current state so that at the next call to do_use_fd() it will continue to read(2) or write(2) from where it stopped before.

           #define MAX_EVENTS 10
           struct epoll_event ev, events[MAX_EVENTS];
           int listen_sock, conn_sock, nfds, epollfd;

           /* Code to set up listening socket, 'listen_sock',
              (socket(), bind(), listen()) omitted. */

           epollfd = epoll_create1(0);
           if (epollfd == -1) {
               perror("epoll_create1");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           ev.events = EPOLLIN;
           ev.data.fd = listen_sock;
           if (epoll_ctl(epollfd, EPOLL_CTL_ADD, listen_sock, &ev) == -1) {
               perror("epoll_ctl: listen_sock");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           for (;;) {
               nfds = epoll_wait(epollfd, events, MAX_EVENTS, -1);
               if (nfds == -1) {
                   perror("epoll_wait");
                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
               }

               for (n = 0; n < nfds; ++n) {
                   if (events[n].data.fd == listen_sock) {
                       conn_sock = accept(listen_sock,
                                          (struct sockaddr *) &addr, &addrlen);
                       if (conn_sock == -1) {
                           perror("accept");
                           exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
                       }
                       setnonblocking(conn_sock);
                       ev.events = EPOLLIN | EPOLLET;
                       ev.data.fd = conn_sock;
                       if (epoll_ctl(epollfd, EPOLL_CTL_ADD, conn_sock,
                                   &ev) == -1) {
                           perror("epoll_ctl: conn_sock");
                           exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
                       }
                   } else {
                       do_use_fd(events[n].data.fd);
                   }
               }
           }

       When used as an edge-triggered interface, for performance reasons, it is possible to add the file descriptor inside the epoll interface (EPOLL_CTL_ADD)  once  by
       specifying (EPOLLIN|EPOLLOUT).  This allows you to avoid continuously switching between EPOLLIN and EPOLLOUT calling epoll_ctl(2) with EPOLL_CTL_MOD.

   Questions and answers
       0.  What is the key used to distinguish the file descriptors registered in an interest list?

           The  key is the combination of the file descriptor number and the open file description (also known as an "open file handle", the kernel's internal represenā€
           tation of an open file).

       1.  What happens if you register the same file descriptor on an epoll instance twice?

           You will probably get EEXIST.  However, it is possible to add a duplicate (dup(2), dup2(2), fcntl(2) F_DUPFD) file descriptor to  the  same  epoll  instance.
           This can be a useful technique for filtering events, if the duplicate file descriptors are registered with different events masks.

       2.  Can two epoll instances wait for the same file descriptor?  If so, are events reported to both epoll file descriptors?

           Yes, and events would be reported to both.  However, careful programming may be needed to do this correctly.

       3.  Is the epoll file descriptor itself poll/epoll/selectable?

           Yes.  If an epoll file descriptor has events waiting, then it will indicate as being readable.

       4.  What happens if one attempts to put an epoll file descriptor into its own file descriptor set?

           The epoll_ctl(2) call fails (EINVAL).  However, you can add an epoll file descriptor inside another epoll file descriptor set.

       5.  Can I send an epoll file descriptor over a UNIX domain socket to another process?

           Yes, but it does not make sense to do this, since the receiving process would not have copies of the file descriptors in the interest list.

       6.  Will closing a file descriptor cause it to be removed from all epoll interest lists?

           Yes,  but be aware of the following point.  A file descriptor is a reference to an open file description (see open(2)).  Whenever a file descriptor is dupliā€
           cated via dup(2), dup2(2), fcntl(2) F_DUPFD, or fork(2), a new file descriptor referring to the same open file description is created.  An open file descripā€
           tion continues to exist until all file descriptors referring to it have been closed.

           A  file  descriptor  is removed from an interest list only after all the file descriptors referring to the underlying open file description have been closed.
           This means that even after a file descriptor that is part of an interest list has been closed, events may be reported for that file descriptor if other  file
           descriptors  referring  to  the same underlying file description remain open.  To prevent this happening, the file descriptor must be explicitly removed from
           the interest list (using epoll_ctl(2) EPOLL_CTL_DEL) before it is duplicated.  Alternatively, the application must  ensure  that  all  file  descriptors  are
           closed (which may be difficult if file descriptors were duplicated behind the scenes by library functions that used dup(2) or fork(2)).

       7.  If more than one event occurs between epoll_wait(2) calls, are they combined or reported separately?

           They will be combined.

       8.  Does an operation on a file descriptor affect the already collected but not yet reported events?

           You can do two operations on an existing file descriptor.  Remove would be meaningless for this case.  Modify will reread available I/O.

       9.  Do I need to continuously read/write a file descriptor until EAGAIN when using the EPOLLET flag (edge-triggered behavior)?

           Receiving  an  event from epoll_wait(2) should suggest to you that such file descriptor is ready for the requested I/O operation.  You must consider it ready
           until the next (nonblocking) read/write yields EAGAIN.  When and how you will use the file descriptor is entirely up to you.

           For packet/token-oriented files (e.g., datagram socket, terminal in canonical mode), the only way to detect the end of the read/write I/O space  is  to  conā€
           tinue to read/write until EAGAIN.

           For  stream-oriented  files  (e.g., pipe, FIFO, stream socket), the condition that the read/write I/O space is exhausted can also be detected by checking the
           amount of data read from / written to the target file descriptor.  For example, if you call read(2) by asking to read a certain amount of  data  and  read(2)
           returns  a  lower  number  of  bytes,  you  can  be sure of having exhausted the read I/O space for the file descriptor.  The same is true when writing using
           write(2).  (Avoid this latter technique if you cannot guarantee that the monitored file descriptor always refers to a stream-oriented file.)

   Possible pitfalls and ways to avoid them
       o Starvation (edge-triggered)

       If there is a large amount of I/O space, it is possible that by trying to drain it the other files will not get processed causing starvation.  (This  problem  is
       not specific to epoll.)

       The  solution  is  to  maintain a ready list and mark the file descriptor as ready in its associated data structure, thereby allowing the application to remember
       which files need to be processed but still round robin amongst all the ready files.  This also supports ignoring subsequent events you receive for file  descripā€
       tors that are already ready.

       o If using an event cache...

       If  you  use an event cache or store all the file descriptors returned from epoll_wait(2), then make sure to provide a way to mark its closure dynamically (i.e.,
       caused by a previous event's processing).  Suppose you receive 100 events from epoll_wait(2), and in event #47 a condition causes event #13 to be closed.  If you
       remove  the  structure  and  close(2)  the file descriptor for event #13, then your event cache might still say there are events waiting for that file descriptor
       causing confusion.

       One solution for this is to call, during the processing of event 47, epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DEL) to delete file descriptor 13 and close(2), then mark its associated
       data  structure  as removed and link it to a cleanup list.  If you find another event for file descriptor 13 in your batch processing, you will discover the file
       descriptor had been previously removed and there will be no confusion.

VERSIONS
       The epoll API was introduced in Linux kernel 2.5.44.  Support was added to glibc in version 2.3.2.

CONFORMING TO
       The epoll API is Linux-specific.  Some other systems provide similar mechanisms, for example, FreeBSD has kqueue, and Solaris has /dev/poll.

NOTES
       The set of file descriptors that is being monitored via an epoll file descriptor can be viewed via the entry for the  epoll  file  descriptor  in  the  process's
       /proc/[pid]/fdinfo directory.  See proc(5) for further details.

       The kcmp(2) KCMP_EPOLL_TFD operation can be used to test whether a file descriptor is present in an epoll instance.

SEE ALSO
       epoll_create(2), epoll_create1(2), epoll_ctl(2), epoll_wait(2), poll(2), select(2)

Linux                                                                          2021-03-22                                                                       EPOLL(7)