xref: /illumos-gate/usr/src/man/man2/sigaltstack.2 (revision bde334a8dbd66dfa70ce4d7fc9dcad6e1ae45fe4)

Sun Microsystems, Inc. gratefully acknowledges The Open Group for
permission to reproduce portions of its copyrighted documentation.
Original documentation from The Open Group can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and The Open
Group, have given us permission to reprint portions of their
documentation.

In the following statement, the phrase ``this text'' refers to portions
of the system documentation.

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
in the SunOS Reference Manual, from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition,
Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6,
Copyright (C) 2001-2004 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy
between these versions and the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee
document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html.

This notice shall appear on any product containing this material.

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.

You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE
or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions
and limitations under the License.

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]


Copyright 1989 AT&T
Portions Copyright (c) 1992, X/Open Company Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright (c) 2003, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SIGALTSTACK 2 "Nov 1, 2003"
NAME
sigaltstack - set or get signal alternate stack context
SYNOPSIS

#include <signal.h>

int sigaltstack(const stack_t *restrict ss, stack_t *restrict oss);
DESCRIPTION

The sigaltstack() function allows a thread to define and examine the state of an alternate stack area on which signals are processed. If ss is non-zero, it specifies a pointer to and the size of a stack area on which to deliver signals, and informs the system whether the thread is currently executing on that stack. When a signal's action indicates its handler should execute on the alternate signal stack (specified with a sigaction(2) call), the system checks whether the thread chosen to execute the signal handler is currently executing on that stack. If the thread is not currently executing on the signal stack, the system arranges a switch to the alternate signal stack for the duration of the signal handler's execution.

The stack_t structure includes the following members:

int *ss_sp
long ss_size
int ss_flags

If ss is not NULL, it points to a structure specifying the alternate signal stack that will take effect upon successful return from sigaltstack(). The ss_sp and ss_size members specify the new base and size of the stack, which is automatically adjusted for direction of growth and alignment. The ss_flags member specifies the new stack state and may be set to the following: SS_DISABLE

The stack is to be disabled and ss_sp and ss_size are ignored. If SS_DISABLE is not set, the stack will be enabled.

If oss is not NULL, it points to a structure specifying the alternate signal stack that was in effect prior to the call to sigaltstack(). The ss_sp and ss_size members specify the base and size of that stack. The ss_flags member specifies the stack's state, and may contain the following values: SS_ONSTACK

The thread is currently executing on the alternate signal stack. Attempts to modify the alternate signal stack while the thread is executing on it will fail.

SS_DISABLE

The alternate signal stack is currently disabled.

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion, 0 is return. Otherwise, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The sigaltstack() function will fail if: EFAULT

The ss or oss argument points to an illegal address.

EINVAL

The ss argument is not a null pointer, and the ss_flags member pointed to by ss contains flags other than SS_DISABLE.

ENOMEM

The size of the alternate stack area is less than MINSIGSTKSZ.

EPERM

An attempt was made to modify an active stack.

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE
Interface Stability Standard
MT-Level Async-Signal-Safe
SEE ALSO

getcontext(2), mmap(2), sigaction(2), ucontext.h(3HEAD), attributes(5), standards(5)

NOTES

The value SIGSTKSZ is defined to be the number of bytes that would be used to cover the usual case when allocating an alternate stack area. The value MINSIGSTKSZ is defined to be the minimum stack size for a signal handler. In computing an alternate stack size, a program should add that amount to its stack requirements to allow for the operating system overhead.

The following code fragment is typically used to allocate an alternate stack with an adjacent red zone (an unmapped page) to guard against stack overflow, as with default stacks:

#include <signal.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>

stack_t sigstk;
sigstk.ss_sp = mmap(NULL, SIGSTKSZ, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
 MAP_PRIVATE | MAP_ANON, -1, 0);
if (sigstk.ss_sp == MAP_FAILED)
 /* error return */;
sigstk.ss_size = SIGSTKSZ;
sigstk.ss_flags = 0;
if (sigaltstack(&sigstk, NULL) < 0)
 perror("sigaltstack");