Copyright 2002 Sun Microsystems Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 1989 AT&T
The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the Common Development and Distribution License (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
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When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE. If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
/dev/mem
/dev/kmem
/dev/allkmem
The file /dev/mem is a special file that provides access to the physical memory of the computer.
The file /dev/kmem is a special file that provides access to the virtual address space of the operating system kernel, excluding memory that is associated with an I/O device.
The file /dev/allkmem is a special file that provides access to the virtual address space of the operating system kernel, including memory that is associated with an I/O device. You can use any of these devices to examine and modify the system.
Byte addresses in /dev/mem are interpreted as physical memory addresses. Byte addresses in /dev/kmem and /dev/allkmem are interpreted as kernel virtual memory addresses. A reference to a non-existent location returns an error. See ERRORS for more information.
The file /dev/mem accesses physical memory; the size of the file is equal to the amount of physical memory in the computer. This size may be larger than 4GB on a system running the 32-bit operating environment. In this case, you can access memory beyond 4GB using a series of read(2) and write(2) calls, a pread64() or pwrite64() call, or a combination of llseek(2) and read(2) or write(2).
Occurs when trying to write(2) a read-only location (allkmem), read(2) a write-only location (allkmem), or read(2) or write(2) a non-existent or unimplemented location (mem, kmem, allkmem).
Occurs when trying to read(2) or write(2) a memory location that is associated with an I/O device using the /dev/kmem special file.
Results from attempting to mmap(2) a non-existent physical (mem) or virtual (kmem, allkmem) memory address.
Provides access to the computer's physical memory.
Provides access to the virtual address space of the operating system kernel, excluding memory that is associated with an I/O device.
Provides access to the virtual address space of the operating system kernel, including memory that is associated with an I/O device.
llseek(2), mmap(2), read(2), write(2)
Using these devices to modify (that is, write to) the address space of a live running operating system or to modify the state of a hardware device is extremely dangerous and may result in a system panic if kernel data structures are damaged or if device state is changed.