Why is remap_file_pages() failing in this example? - c

Question

The following C code illustrates a problem I'm seeing on Linux 2.6.30.5-43.fc11.x86_64:
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main() {
char buf[1024];
void *base;
int fd;
size_t pagesz = sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE);
fd = open("<some file, at least 4*pagesz in length>", O_RDONLY);
if (fd < 0) {
perror("open");
return 1;
}
base = mmap(0, 4*pagesz, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
if (base < 0) {
perror("mmap");
close(fd);
return 1;
}
memcpy(buf, (char*)base + 2*pagesz, 1024);
if (remap_file_pages(base, pagesz, 0, 2, 0) < 0) {
perror("remap_file_pages");
munmap(base, 4*pagesz);
close(fd);
return 1;
}
printf("%d\n", memcmp(buf, base, 1024));
munmap(base, 4*pagesz);
close(fd);
return 0;
}
This always fails with remap_file_pages() returning -1 and errno set to EINVAL. Looking at the kernel source I can see all the conditions in remap_file_pages() where it might fail but none of them seem to apply to my example. What's going on?

Answer 1

It's caused by the file being opened O_RDONLY. If you change the open mode to O_RDWR, it works (even if the mmap() still specifies just PROT_READ).
This code in do_mmap_pgoff is the root cause - it only marks the vma as VM_SHARED if the file was opened for writing:
vm_flags |= VM_SHARED | VM_MAYSHARE;
if (!(file->f_mode & FMODE_WRITE))
vm_flags &= ~(VM_MAYWRITE | VM_SHARED);
So in remap_file_pages(), you fail on the first check:
if (!vma || !(vma->vm_flags & VM_SHARED))
goto out;