Provided by: libkqueue-dev_2.3.1-1_amd64 
NAME
kqueue, kevent — kernel event notification mechanism
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/event.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
int
kqueue(void);
int
kevent(int kq, const struct kevent *changelist, int nchanges, struct kevent *eventlist, int nevents,
const struct timespec *timeout);
EV_SET(&kev, ident, filter, flags, fflags, data, udata);
DESCRIPTION
The kqueue() system call provides a generic method of notifying the user when an event happens or a
condition holds, based on the results of small pieces of kernel code termed filters. A kevent is
identified by the (ident, filter) pair; there may only be one unique kevent per kqueue.
The filter is executed upon the initial registration of a kevent in order to detect whether a preexisting
condition is present, and is also executed whenever an event is passed to the filter for evaluation. If
the filter determines that the condition should be reported, then the kevent is placed on the kqueue for
the user to retrieve.
The filter is also run when the user attempts to retrieve the kevent from the kqueue. If the filter
indicates that the condition that triggered the event no longer holds, the kevent is removed from the
kqueue and is not returned.
Multiple events which trigger the filter do not result in multiple kevents being placed on the kqueue;
instead, the filter will aggregate the events into a single struct kevent. Calling close() on a file
descriptor will remove any kevents that reference the descriptor.
The kqueue() system call creates a new kernel event queue and returns a descriptor. The queue is not
inherited by a child created with fork(2). However, if rfork(2) is called without the RFFDG flag, then
the descriptor table is shared, which will allow sharing of the kqueue between two processes.
The kevent() system call is used to register events with the queue, and return any pending events to the
user. The changelist argument is a pointer to an array of kevent structures, as defined in
<sys/event.h>. All changes contained in the changelist are applied before any pending events are read
from the queue. The nchanges argument gives the size of changelist. The eventlist argument is a pointer
to an array of kevent structures. The nevents argument determines the size of eventlist. When nevents
is zero, kevent() will return immediately even if there is a timeout specified unlike select(2). If
timeout is a non-NULL pointer, it specifies a maximum interval to wait for an event, which will be
interpreted as a struct timespec. If timeout is a NULL pointer, kevent() waits indefinitely. To effect
a poll, the timeout argument should be non-NULL, pointing to a zero-valued timespec structure. The same
array may be used for the changelist and eventlist.
The EV_SET() macro is provided for ease of initializing a kevent structure.
The kevent structure is defined as:
struct kevent {
uintptr_t ident; /* identifier for this event */
short filter; /* filter for event */
u_short flags; /* action flags for kqueue */
u_int fflags; /* filter flag value */
intptr_t data; /* filter data value */
void *udata; /* opaque user data identifier */
};
The fields of struct kevent are:
ident Value used to identify this event. The exact interpretation is determined by the attached
filter, but often is a file descriptor.
filter Identifies the kernel filter used to process this event. The pre-defined system filters are
described below.
flags Actions to perform on the event.
fflags Filter-specific flags.
data Filter-specific data value.
udata Opaque user-defined value passed through the kernel unchanged.
The flags field can contain the following values:
EV_ADD Adds the event to the kqueue. Re-adding an existing event will modify the parameters of
the original event, and not result in a duplicate entry. Adding an event automatically
enables it, unless overridden by the EV_DISABLE flag.
EV_ENABLE Permit kevent() to return the event if it is triggered.
EV_DISABLE Disable the event so kevent() will not return it. The filter itself is not disabled.
EV_DISPATCH Disable the event source immediately after delivery of an event. See EV_DISABLE above.
EV_DELETE Removes the event from the kqueue. Events which are attached to file descriptors are
automatically deleted on the last close of the descriptor.
EV_RECEIPT This flag is useful for making bulk changes to a kqueue without draining any pending
events. When passed as input, it forces EV_ERROR to always be returned. When a filter is
successfully added the data field will be zero.
EV_ONESHOT Causes the event to return only the first occurrence of the filter being triggered. After
the user retrieves the event from the kqueue, it is deleted.
EV_CLEAR After the event is retrieved by the user, its state is reset. This is useful for filters
which report state transitions instead of the current state. Note that some filters may
automatically set this flag internally.
EV_EOF Filters may set this flag to indicate filter-specific EOF condition.
EV_ERROR See “RETURN VALUES” below.
The predefined system filters are listed below. Arguments may be passed to and from the filter via the
fflags and data fields in the kevent structure.
EVFILT_READ Takes a descriptor as the identifier, and returns whenever there is data available to
read. The behavior of the filter is slightly different depending on the descriptor type.
Sockets
Sockets which have previously been passed to listen() return when there is an incoming
connection pending. data contains the size of the listen backlog.
Other socket descriptors return when there is data to be read, subject to the
SO_RCVLOWAT value of the socket buffer. This may be overridden with a per-filter low
water mark at the time the filter is added by setting the NOTE_LOWAT flag in fflags,
and specifying the new low water mark in data. On return, data contains the number of
bytes of protocol data available to read.
If the read direction of the socket has shutdown, then the filter also sets EV_EOF in
flags, and returns the socket error (if any) in fflags. It is possible for EOF to be
returned (indicating the connection is gone) while there is still data pending in the
socket buffer.
Vnodes
Returns when the file pointer is not at the end of file. data contains the offset
from current position to end of file, and may be negative.
Fifos, Pipes
Returns when the there is data to read; data contains the number of bytes available.
When the last writer disconnects, the filter will set EV_EOF in flags. This may be
cleared by passing in EV_CLEAR, at which point the filter will resume waiting for data
to become available before returning.
BPF devices
Returns when the BPF buffer is full, the BPF timeout has expired, or when the BPF has
“immediate mode” enabled and there is any data to read; data contains the number of
bytes available.
EVFILT_WRITE Takes a descriptor as the identifier, and returns whenever it is possible to write to the
descriptor. For sockets, pipes and fifos, data will contain the amount of space remaining
in the write buffer. The filter will set EV_EOF when the reader disconnects, and for the
fifo case, this may be cleared by use of EV_CLEAR. Note that this filter is not supported
for vnodes or BPF devices.
For sockets, the low water mark and socket error handling is identical to the EVFILT_READ
case.
EVFILT_VNODE Takes a file descriptor as the identifier and the events to watch for in fflags, and
returns when one or more of the requested events occurs on the descriptor. The events to
monitor are:
NOTE_DELETE The unlink() system call was called on the file referenced by the
descriptor.
NOTE_WRITE A write occurred on the file referenced by the descriptor.
NOTE_EXTEND The file referenced by the descriptor was extended.
NOTE_ATTRIB The file referenced by the descriptor had its attributes changed.
NOTE_LINK The link count on the file changed.
NOTE_RENAME The file referenced by the descriptor was renamed.
On return, fflags contains the events which triggered the filter.
EVFILT_SIGNAL Takes the signal number to monitor as the identifier and returns when the given signal is
delivered to the process. This overrides the signal() and sigaction() facilities, and has
a higher precedence. The filter will record all attempts to deliver a signal to a
process, even if the signal has been marked as SIG_IGN. data returns the number of times
the signal has occurred since the last call to kevent(). This filter automatically sets
the EV_CLEAR flag internally.
EVFILT_TIMER Establishes an arbitrary timer identified by ident. When adding a timer, data specifies
the timeout period and fflags can be set to one of the following:
NOTE_SECONDS data is in seconds
NOTE_USECONDS data is in microseconds
NOTE_NSECONDS data is in nanoseconds
NOTE_ABSOLUTE data is an absolute timeout
If fflags is not set, the default is milliseconds. The timer will be periodic unless
EV_ONESHOT is specified. On return, data contains the number of times the timeout has
expired since the last call to kevent(). This filter automatically sets the EV_CLEAR flag
internally. There is a system wide limit on the number of timers which is controlled by
the kern.kq_calloutmax sysctl.
EVFILT_USER Establishes a user event identified by ident which is not assosicated with any kernel
mechanism but is triggered by user level code. The lower 24 bits of the fflags may be
used for user defined flags and manipulated using the following:
NOTE_FFNOP Ignore the input fflags.
NOTE_FFAND Bitwise AND fflags.
NOTE_FFOR Bitwise OR fflags.
NOTE_COPY Copy fflags.
NOTE_FFCTRLMASK Control mask for fflags.
NOTE_FFLAGSMASK User defined flag mask for fflags.
A user event is triggered for output with the following:
NOTE_TRIGGER Cause the event to be triggered.
On return, fflags contains the users defined flags in the lower 24 bits.
RETURN VALUES
The kqueue() system call creates a new kernel event queue and returns a file descriptor. If there was an
error creating the kernel event queue, a value of -1 is returned and errno set.
The kevent() system call returns the number of events placed in the eventlist, up to the value given by
nevents. If an error occurs while processing an element of the changelist and there is enough room in
the eventlist, then the event will be placed in the eventlist with EV_ERROR set in flags and the system
error in data. Otherwise, -1 will be returned, and errno will be set to indicate the error condition.
If the time limit expires, then kevent() returns 0.
ERRORS
The kqueue() system call fails if:
[ENOMEM] The kernel failed to allocate enough memory for the kernel queue.
[EMFILE] The per-process descriptor table is full.
[ENFILE] The system file table is full.
The kevent() system call fails if:
[EACCES] The process does not have permission to register a filter.
[EFAULT] There was an error reading or writing the kevent structure.
[EBADF] The specified descriptor is invalid.
[EINTR] A signal was delivered before the timeout expired and before any events were placed on
the kqueue for return.
[EINVAL] The specified time limit or filter is invalid.
[ENOENT] The event could not be found to be modified or deleted.
[ENOMEM] No memory was available to register the event or, in the special case of a timer, the
maximum number of timers has been exceeded. This maximum is configurable via the
kern.kq_calloutmax sysctl.
[ESRCH] The specified process to attach to does not exist.
SEE ALSO
aio_error(2), aio_read(2), aio_return(2), poll(2), read(2), select(2), sigaction(2), write(2), signal(3)
HISTORY
The kqueue() and kevent() system calls first appeared in FreeBSD 4.1.
AUTHORS
The kqueue() system and this manual page were written by Jonathan Lemon <jlemon@FreeBSD.org>.
Debian September 17, 2010 KQUEUE(2)