NAME
sigaltstack —
set and/or get signal stack
context
SYNOPSIS
#include
<sys/types.h>
#include <signal.h>
struct sigaltstack {
caddr_t ss_base;
long ss_size;
int ss_flags;
};
int
sigaltstack(const
struct sigaltstack *ss,
struct sigaltstack *oss);
DESCRIPTION
Sigaltstack()
allows users to define an alternate stack on which signals are to be
processed. If ss is non-zero, it specifies a pointer to
and the size of a
signal
stack on which to deliver signals, and tells the system if the process
is currently executing on that stack. When a signal's action indicates its
handler should execute on the signal stack (specified with a
sigaction(2) call), the system checks to see if the process is
currently executing on that stack. If the process is not currently executing
on the signal stack, the system arranges a switch to the signal stack for the
duration of the signal handler's execution.
If SA_DISABLE is set in
ss_flags, ss_base and
ss_size are ignored and the signal stack will be
disabled. Trying to disable an active stack will cause
sigaltstack to return -1 with
errno set to EINVAL. A
disabled stack will cause all signals to be taken on the regular user stack.
If the stack is later re-enabled then all signals that were specified to be
processed on an alternate stack will resume doing so.
If oss is non-zero, the current signal stack
state is returned. The ss_flags field will contain the
value SA_ONSTACK if the process is currently on a
signal stack and SA_DISABLE if the signal stack is
currently disabled.
NOTES
The value SIGSTKSZ is defined to be the
number of bytes/chars that would be used to cover the usual case when
allocating an alternate stack area. The following code fragment is typically
used to allocate an alternate stack.
if ((sigstk.ss_base = malloc(SIGSTKSZ)) == NULL)
/* error return */
sigstk.ss_size = SIGSTKSZ;
sigstk.ss_flags = 0;
if (sigaltstack(&sigstk,0) < 0)
perror("sigaltstack");
MINSIGSTKSZ is defined to be the number of
bytes/chars that is required by the operating system to implement the
alternate stack feature. In computing an alternate stack size, programs should
add MINSIGSTKSZ to their stack requirements to allow
for the operating system overhead.
Signal stacks are automatically adjusted for the direction of stack growth and alignment requirements. Signal stacks may or may not be protected by the hardware and are not ``grown'' automatically as is done for the normal stack. If the stack overflows and this space is not protected unpredictable results may occur.
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
Sigstack() will fail and the signal stack
context will remain unchanged if one of the following occurs.
- [
EFAULT] - Either ss or oss points to memory that is not a valid part of the process address space.
- [
EINVAL] - An attempt was made to disable an active stack.
- [
ENOMEM] - Size of alternate stack area is less than or equal to
MINSIGSTKSZ.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
The predecessor to sigaltstack, the
sigstack() system call, appeared in
4.2BSD.