mremap — remap a virtual memory address
#define _GNU_SOURCE /* See feature_test_macros(7) */ #include <sys/mman.h>
| void
            *mremap( | void *old_address, | 
| size_t old_size, | |
| size_t new_size, | |
| int flags, | |
| ... /* void *new_address
            */ ); | 
mremap() expands (or
      shrinks) an existing memory mapping, potentially moving it at
      the same time (controlled by the flags argument and the
      available virtual address space).
old_address is the
      old address of the virtual memory block that you want to
      expand (or shrink). Note that old_address has to be page
      aligned. old_size is
      the old size of the virtual memory block. new_size is the requested size
      of the virtual memory block after the resize. An optional
      fifth argument, new_address, may be provided;
      see the description of MREMAP_FIXED below.
In Linux the memory is divided into pages. A user process has (one or) several linear virtual memory segments. Each virtual memory segment has one or more mappings to real memory pages (in the page table). Each virtual memory segment has its own protection (access rights), which may cause a segmentation violation if the memory is accessed incorrectly (e.g., writing to a read-only segment). Accessing virtual memory outside of the segments will also cause a segmentation violation.
mremap() uses the Linux page
      table scheme. mremap() changes
      the mapping between virtual addresses and memory pages. This
      can be used to implement a very efficient realloc(3).
The flags bit-mask
      argument may be 0, or include the following flag:
MREMAP_MAYMOVEBy default, if there is not sufficient space to
            expand a mapping at its current location, then
            mremap() fails. If this
            flag is specified, then the kernel is permitted to
            relocate the mapping to a new virtual address, if
            necessary. If the mapping is relocated, then absolute
            pointers into the old mapping location become invalid
            (offsets relative to the starting address of the
            mapping should be employed).
MREMAP_FIXED (since Linux
          2.3.31)This flag serves a similar purpose to the
            MAP_FIXED flag of
            mmap(2). If this flag
            is specified, then mremap() accepts a fifth argument,
            void
            *new_address, which specifies a
            page-aligned address to which the mapping must be
            moved. Any previous mapping at the address range
            specified by new_address and
            new_size is
            unmapped. If MREMAP_FIXED
            is specified, then MREMAP_MAYMOVE must also be
            specified.
If the memory segment specified by old_address and old_size is locked (using
      mlock(2) or similar), then
      this lock is maintained when the segment is resized and/or
      relocated. As a consequence, the amount of memory locked by
      the process may change.
On success mremap() returns
      a pointer to the new virtual memory area. On error, the value
      MAP_FAILED (that is,
      (void *) −1) is
      returned, and errno is set
      appropriately.
The caller tried to expand a memory segment that is
            locked, but this was not possible without exceeding the
            RLIMIT_MEMLOCK resource
            limit.
"Segmentation fault." Some address in the range
            old_address to
            old_address+old_size is an invalid
            virtual memory address for this process. You can also
            get EFAULT even if there
            exist mappings that cover the whole address space
            requested, but those mappings are of different
            types.
An invalid argument was given. Possible causes are:
            old_address was
            not page aligned; a value other than MREMAP_MAYMOVE or MREMAP_FIXED was specified in
            flags;
            new_size was
            zero; new_size
            or new_address was
            invalid; or the new address range specified by
            new_address
            and new_size
            overlapped the old address range specified by
            old_address and
            old_size; or
            MREMAP_FIXED was
            specified without also specifying MREMAP_MAYMOVE.
The memory area cannot be expanded at the current
            virtual address, and the MREMAP_MAYMOVE flag is not set in
            flags. Or,
            there is not enough (virtual) memory available.
This call is Linux-specific, and should not be used in programs intended to be portable.
Prior to version 2.4, glibc did not expose the definition
      of MREMAP_FIXED, and the
      prototype for mremap() did not
      allow for the new_address argument.
brk(2), getpagesize(2), getrlimit(2), mlock(2), mmap(2), sbrk(2), malloc(3), realloc(3)
Your favorite OS text book for more information on paged memory. (Modern Operating Systems by Andrew S. Tannenbaum, Inside Linux by Randolf Bentson, The Design of the UNIX Operating System by Maurice J. Bach.)
This page is part of release 3.33 of the Linux man-pages project. A
      description of the project, and information about reporting
      bugs, can be found at http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/.
| Copyright (c) 1996 Tom Bjorkholm <tombmydata.se> This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. The GNU General Public License's references to "object code" and "executables" are to be interpreted as the output of any document formatting or typesetting system, including intermediate and printed output. This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA. 1996-04-11 Tom Bjorkholm <tombmydata.se> First version written (1.3.86) 1996-04-12 Tom Bjorkholm <tombmydata.se> Update for Linux 1.3.87 and later 2005-10-11 mtk: Added NOTES for MREMAP_FIXED; revised EINVAL text. |