From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 22 21:17:19 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F02F7106566C for ; Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:17:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from deischen@freebsd.org) Received: from mail.netplex.net (mail.netplex.net [204.213.176.10]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE56F8FC0C for ; Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:17:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: from sea.ntplx.net (sea.ntplx.net [204.213.176.11]) by mail.netplex.net (8.14.3/8.14.3/NETPLEX) with ESMTP id n9MLH7X5006969; Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:17:07 -0400 (EDT) X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS and Clam AntiVirus (mail.netplex.net) X-Greylist: Message whitelisted by DRAC access database, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.2 (mail.netplex.net [204.213.176.10]); Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:17:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:17:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Daniel Eischen X-X-Sender: eischen@sea.ntplx.net To: Andrew Gallatin In-Reply-To: <4AE0C995.5060303@cs.duke.edu> Message-ID: References: <4AE0BBAB.3040807@cs.duke.edu> <4AE0C995.5060303@cs.duke.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Christian Bell Subject: Re: semaphores between processes X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Daniel Eischen List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:17:20 -0000 On Thu, 22 Oct 2009, Andrew Gallatin wrote: > Daniel Eischen wrote: >> On Thu, 22 Oct 2009, Andrew Gallatin wrote: >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> We're designing some software which has to lock access to >>> shared memory pages between several processes, and has to >>> run on Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD. We were planning to >>> have the lock be a pthread_mutex_t residing in the >>> shared memory page. This works well on Linux and Solaris, >>> but FreeBSD (at least 7-stable) does not support >>> PTHREAD_PROCESS_SHARED mutexes. >>> >>> We then moved on to posix semaphores. Using sem_wait/sem_post >>> with the sem_t residing in a shared page seems to work on >>> all 3 platforms. However, the FreeBSD (7-stable) man page >>> for sem_init(3) has this scary text regarding the pshared >>> value: >>> >>> The sem_init() function initializes the unnamed semaphore pointed to >>> by >>> sem to have the value value. A non-zero value for pshared specifies a >>> shared semaphore that can be used by multiple processes, which this >>> implementation is not capable of. >>> >>> Is this text obsolete? Or is my test just "getting lucky"? >> >> I think you're getting lucky. > > Yes, after playing with the code some, I now see that. :( > >>> Is there recommended way to do this? >> >> I believe the only way to do this is with SYSV semaphores >> (semop, semget, semctl). Unfortunately, these are not as >> easy to use, IMHO. > > Yes, they are pretty ugly, and we were hoping to avoid them. > Are there any plans to support either PTHREAD_PROCESS_SHARED > mutexes, or pshared posix semaphores in FreeBSD? It's planned, just not (yet) being actively worked on. It's a API change mostly, and then adding in all the compat hooks so we don't break ABI. -- DE