NAME
msgctl
—
message control operations
LIBRARY
library “libc”
SYNOPSIS
#include
<sys/types.h>
#include <sys/ipc.h>
#include <sys/msg.h>
int
msgctl
(int
msqid, int cmd,
struct msqid_ds
*buf);
DESCRIPTION
Themsgctl
()
system call performs some control operations on the message queue specified by
msqid.
Each message queue has a data structure associated
with it, parts of which may be altered by
msgctl
()
and parts of which determine the actions of
msgctl
(). The data structure is defined in
<sys/msg.h>
and contains
(amongst others) the following members:
struct msqid_ds { struct ipc_perm msg_perm; /* msg queue permission bits */ struct msg *__msg_first; /* kernel data, don't use */ struct msg *__msg_last; /* kernel data, don't use */ msglen_t msg_cbytes; /* number of bytes in use on the queue */ msgqnum_t msg_qnum; /* number of msgs in the queue */ msglen_t msg_qbytes; /* max # of bytes on the queue */ pid_t msg_lspid; /* pid of last msgsnd() */ pid_t msg_lrpid; /* pid of last msgrcv() */ time_t msg_stime; /* time of last msgsnd() */ time_t msg_rtime; /* time of last msgrcv() */ time_t msg_ctime; /* time of last msgctl() */ };
The ipc_perm structure used inside the
msqid_ds structure is defined in
<sys/ipc.h>
and looks like
this:
struct ipc_perm { uid_t cuid; /* creator user id */ gid_t cgid; /* creator group id */ uid_t uid; /* user id */ gid_t gid; /* group id */ mode_t mode; /* r/w permission */ unsigned short seq; /* sequence # (to generate unique ipcid) */ key_t key; /* user specified msg/sem/shm key */ };
The operation to be performed by
msgctl
()
is specified in cmd and is one of:
IPC_STAT
- Gather information about the message queue and place it in the structure pointed to by buf.
IPC_SET
- Set the value of the msg_perm.uid,
msg_perm.gid, msg_perm.mode
and msg_qbytes fields in the structure associated
with msqid. The values are taken from the
corresponding fields in the structure pointed to by
buf. This operation can only be executed by the
super-user, or a process that has an effective user id equal to either
msg_perm.cuid or msg_perm.uid
in the data structure associated with the message queue. The value of
msg_qbytes can only be increased by the super-user.
Values for msg_qbytes that exceed the system limit
(MSGMNB from
<sys/msg.h>
) are silently truncated to that limit. IPC_RMID
- Remove the message queue specified by msqid and destroy the data associated with it. Only the super-user or a process with an effective uid equal to the msg_perm.cuid or msg_perm.uid values in the data structure associated with the queue can do this.
The permission to read from or write to a message queue (see msgsnd(2) and msgrcv(2)) is determined by the msg_perm.mode field in the same way as is done with files (see chmod(2)), but the effective uid can match either the msg_perm.cuid field or the msg_perm.uid field, and the effective gid can match either msg_perm.cgid or msg_perm.gid.
RETURN VALUES
The msgctl
() function returns the
value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and
the global variable errno is set to indicate the
error.
ERRORS
The msgctl
() function will fail if:
- [
EPERM
] - The cmd argument is equal to IPC_SET or IPC_RMID and
the caller is not the super-user, nor does the effective uid match either
the msg_perm.uid or
msg_perm.cuid fields of the data structure
associated with the message queue.
An attempt is made to increase the value of msg_qbytes through IPC_SET but the caller is not the super-user.
- [
EACCES
] - The command is IPC_STAT and the caller has no read permission for this message queue.
- [
EINVAL
] - The msqid argument is not a valid message queue
identifier.
cmd is not a valid command.
- [
EFAULT
] - The buf argument specifies an invalid address.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
Message queues appeared in the first release of AT&T System V UNIX.