aio — POSIX asynchronous I/O overview
The POSIX asynchronous I/O (AIO) interface allows applications to initiate one or more I/O operations that are performed asynchronously (i.e., in the background). The application can elect to be notified of completion of the I/O operation in a variety of ways: by delivery of a signal, by instantiation of a thread, or no notification at all.
The POSIX AIO interface consists of the following functions:
Enqueue a read request. This is the asynchronous analog of read(2).
Enqueue a write request. This is the asynchronous analog of write(2).
Enqueue a sync request for the I/O operations on a file descriptor. This is the asynchronous analog of fsync(2) and fdatasync(2).
Obtain the error status of an enqueued I/O request.
Obtain the return status of a completed I/O request.
Suspend the caller until one or more of a specified set of I/O requests completes.
Attempt to cancel outstanding I/O requests on a specified file descriptor.
Enqueue multiple I/O requests using a single function call.
The aiocb
("asynchronous I/O control block") structure defines
parameters that control an I/O operation. An argument of this
type is employed with all of the functions listed above. This
structure has the following form:
#include <aiocb.h> struct aiocb { /* The order of these fields is implementation-dependent */ int aio_fildes; /* File descriptor */ off_t aio_offset; /* File offset */ volatile void *aio_buf; /* Location of buffer */ size_t aio_nbytes; /* Length of transfer */ int aio_reqprio; /* Request priority */ struct sigevent aio_sigevent; /* Notification method */ int aio_lio_opcode; /* Operation to be performed; lio_listio() only */ /* Various implementation-internal fields not shown */ }; /* Operation codes for 'aio_lio_opcode': */ enum { LIO_READ, LIO_WRITE, LIO_NOP };
The fields of this structure are as follows:
aio_filedes
The file descriptor on which the I/O operation is to be performed.
aio_offset
This is the file offset at which the I/O operation is to be performed.
aio_buf
This is the buffer used to transfer data for a read or write operation.
aio_nbytes
This is the size of the buffer pointed to by
aio_buf
.
aio_reqprio
This field specifies a value that is subtracted from
the calling thread's real-time priority in order to
determine the priority for execution of this I/O
request (see pthread_setschedparam(3)).
The specified value must be between 0 and the value
returned by sysconf(_SC_AIO_PRIO_DELTA_MAX)
.
This field is ignored for file synchronization
operations.
aio_sigevent
This field is a structure that specifies how the
caller is to be notified when the asynchronous I/O
operation completes. Possible values for aio_sigevent.sigev_notify
are SIGEV_NONE
,
SIGEV_SIGNAL
, and
SIGEV_THREAD
. See
sigevent(7) for
further details.
aio_lio_opcode
The type of operation to be performed; used only for lio_listio(3).
In addition to the standard functions listed above, the GNU C library provides the following extension to the POSIX AIO API:
Set parameters for tuning the behavior of the glibc POSIX AIO implementation.
The aio_reqprio
field of
the aiocb
structure was less than 0, or was greater than the
limit returned by the call sysconf(_SC_AIO_PRIO_DELTA_MAX)
.
It is a good idea to zero out the control block buffer
before use (see memset(3)). The control
block buffer and the buffer pointed to by aio_buf
must not be changed
while the I/O operation is in progress. These buffers must
remain valid until the I/O operation completes.
Simultaneous asynchronous read or write operations using
the same aiocb
structure yield undefined results.
The current Linux POSIX AIO implementation is provided in user space by glibc. This has a number of limitations, most notably that maintaining multiple threads to perform I/O operations is expensive and scales poorly. Work has been in progress for some time on a kernel state-machine-based implementation of asynchronous I/O (see io_submit(2), io_setup(2), io_cancel(2), io_destroy(2), io_getevents(2)), but this implementation hasn't yet matured to the point where the POSIX AIO implementation can be completely reimplemented using the kernel system calls.
The program below opens each of the files named in its command-line arguments and queues a request on the resulting file descriptor using aio_read(3). The program then loops, periodically monitoring each of the I/O operations that is still in progress using aio_error(3). Each of the I/O requests is set up to provide notification by delivery of a signal. After all I/O requests have completed, the program retrieves their status using aio_return(3).
The SIGQUIT
signal
(generated by typing control-\) causes the program to request
cancellation of each of the outstanding requests using
aio_cancel(3).
Here is an example of what we might see when running this program. In this example, the program queues two requests to standard input, and these are satisfied by two lines of input containing "abc" and "x".
$ ./a.out /dev/stdin /dev/stdin opened /dev/stdin on descriptor 3 opened /dev/stdin on descriptor 4 aio_error(): for request 0 (descriptor 3): In progress for request 1 (descriptor 4): In progressabc
I/O completion signal received aio_error(): for request 0 (descriptor 3): I/O succeeded for request 1 (descriptor 4): In progress aio_error(): for request 1 (descriptor 4): In progressx
I/O completion signal received aio_error(): for request 1 (descriptor 4): I/O succeeded All I/O requests completed aio_return(): for request 0 (descriptor 3): 4 for request 1 (descriptor 4): 2
#include <fcntl.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <errno.h> #include <aio.h> #include <signal.h> #define BUF_SIZE 20 /* Size of buffers for read operations */ #define errExit(msg) do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0) #define errMsg(msg) do { perror(msg); } while (0) struct ioRequest { /* Application−defined structure for tracking I/O requests */ int reqNum; int status; struct aiocb *aiocbp; }; static volatile sig_atomic_t gotSIGQUIT = 0; /* On delivery of SIGQUIT, we attempt to cancel all outstanding I/O requests */ static void /* Handler for SIGQUIT */ quitHandler(int sig) { gotSIGQUIT = 1; } #define IO_SIGNAL SIGUSR1 /* Signal used to notify I/O completion */ static void /* Handler for I/O completion signal */ aioSigHandler(int sig, siginfo_t *si, void *ucontext) { if (si->si_code == SI_ASYNCIO) { write(STDOUT_FILENO, "I/O completion signal received\n", 31); /* The corresponding ioRequest structure would be available as struct ioRequest *ioReq = si−>si_value.sival_ptr; and the file descriptor would then be available via ioReq−>aiocbp−>aio_fildes */ } } int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { struct ioRequest *ioList; struct aiocb *aiocbList; struct sigaction sa; int s, j; int numReqs; /* Total number of queued I/O requests */ int openReqs; /* Number of I/O requests still in progress */ if (argc < 2) { fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <pathname> <pathname>...\n", argv[0]); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } numReqs = argc − 1; /* Allocate our arrays */ ioList = calloc(numReqs, sizeof(struct ioRequest)); if (ioList == NULL) errExit("calloc"); aiocbList = calloc(numReqs, sizeof(struct aiocb)); if (aiocbList == NULL) errExit("calloc"); /* Establish handlers for SIGQUIT and the I/O completion signal */ sa.sa_flags = SA_RESTART; sigemptyset(&sa.sa_mask); sa.sa_handler = quitHandler; if (sigaction(SIGQUIT, &sa, NULL) == −1) errExit("sigaction"); sa.sa_flags = SA_RESTART | SA_SIGINFO; sa.sa_sigaction = aioSigHandler; if (sigaction(IO_SIGNAL, &sa, NULL) == −1) errExit("sigaction"); /* Open each file specified on the command line, and queue a read request on the resulting file descriptor */ for (j = 0; j < numReqs; j++) { ioList[j].reqNum = j; ioList[j].status = EINPROGRESS; ioList[j].aiocbp = &aiocbList[j]; ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_fildes = open(argv[j + 1], O_RDONLY); if (ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_fildes == −1) errExit("open"); printf("opened %s on descriptor %d\n", argv[j + 1], ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_fildes); ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_buf = malloc(BUF_SIZE); if (ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_buf == NULL) errExit("malloc"); ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_nbytes = BUF_SIZE; ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_reqprio = 0; ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_offset = 0; ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_sigevent.sigev_notify = SIGEV_SIGNAL; ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_sigevent.sigev_signo = IO_SIGNAL; ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_sigevent.sigev_value.sival_ptr = &ioList[j]; s = aio_read(ioList[j].aiocbp); if (s == −1) errExit("aio_read"); } openReqs = numReqs; /* Loop, monitoring status of I/O requests */ while (openReqs > 0) { sleep(3); /* Delay between each monitoring step */ if (gotSIGQUIT) { /* On receipt of SIGQUIT, attempt to cancel each of the outstanding I/O requests, and display status returned from the cancellation requests */ printf("got SIGQUIT; canceling I/O requests: \n"); for (j = 0; j < numReqs; j++) { if (ioList[j].status == EINPROGRESS) { printf(" Request %d on descriptor %d:", j, ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_fildes); s = aio_cancel(ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_fildes, ioList[j].aiocbp); if (s == AIO_CANCELED) printf("I/O canceled\n"); else if (s == AIO_NOTCANCELED) printf("I/O not canceled\n"); else if (s == AIO_ALLDONE) printf("I/O all done\n"); else errMsg("aio_cancel"); } } gotSIGQUIT = 0; } /* Check the status of each I/O request that is still in progress */ printf("aio_error():\n"); for (j = 0; j < numReqs; j++) { if (ioList[j].status == EINPROGRESS) { printf(" for request %d (descriptor %d): ", j, ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_fildes); ioList[j].status = aio_error(ioList[j].aiocbp); switch (ioList[j].status) { case 0: printf("I/O succeeded\n"); break; case EINPROGRESS: printf("In progress\n"); break; case ECANCELED: printf("Canceled\n"); break; default: errMsg("aio_error"); break; } if (ioList[j].status != EINPROGRESS) openReqs−−; } } } printf("All I/O requests completed\n"); /* Check status return of all I/O requests */ printf("aio_return():\n"); for (j = 0; j < numReqs; j++) { ssize_t s; s = aio_return(ioList[j].aiocbp); printf(" for request %d (descriptor %d): %zd\n", j, ioList[j].aiocbp−>aio_fildes, s); } exit(EXIT_SUCCESS); }
io_cancel(2), io_destroy(2), io_getevents(2), io_setup(2), io_submit(2), aio_cancel(3), aio_error(3), aio_init(3), aio_read(3), aio_return(3), aio_write(3), lio_listio(3)
"Asynchronous I/O Support in Linux 2.5", Bhattacharya, Pratt, Pulavarty, and Morgan, Proceedings of the Linux Symposium, 2003, https://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2003/ols2003-pages-351-366.pdf
This page is part of release 4.07 of the Linux man-pages
project. A
description of the project, information about reporting bugs,
and the latest version of this page, can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man−pages/.
t Copyright (c) 2010 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com> %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM) Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working professionally. Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work. %%%LICENSE_END |