kvm_open

KVM_OPEN(3)               OpenBSD Programmer's Manual              KVM_OPEN(3)

NAME

     kvm_open, kvm_openfiles, kvm_close - initialize kernel virtual memory
     access

SYNOPSIS

     #include <fcntl.h>
     #include <kvm.h>

     kvm_t *
     kvm_open(const char *execfile, const char *corefile, char *swapfile, int
     flags, const char *errstr);

     kvm_t *
     kvm_openfiles(const char *execfile, const char *corefile, char
     *swapfile, int flags, char *errbuf);

     int
     kvm_close(kvm_t *kd);

DESCRIPTION

     The functions kvm_open() and kvm_openfiles() return a descriptor used to
     access kernel virtual memory via the kvm(3) library routines.  Both
     active kernels and crash dumps are accessible through this interface.

     execfile is the executable image of the kernel being examined.  This file
     must contain a symbol table.  If this argument is NULL, the currently
     running system is assumed, which is indicated by _PATH_KSYMS, if it
     exists, otherwise _PATH_UNIX is used.  Both are defined in <paths.h>.

     corefile is the kernel memory device file.  It can be either /dev/mem or
     a crash dump core generated by savecore(8).  If corefile is NULL, the
     default indicated by _PATH_MEM from <paths.h> is used.

     swapfile should indicate the swap device.  If NULL, no swap device will
     be used.

     The flags argument indicates read/write access as in open(2) and applies
     only to the core file.  Only O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, and O_RDWR are
     permitted.  A special value KVM_NO_FILES can be specified which will
     cause no files to be opened and the handle can only be used on live
     kernels on a limited subset of all kvm operations.

     There are two open routines which differ only with respect to the error
     mechanism.  One provides backward compatibility with the SunOS kvm
     library, while the other provides an improved error reporting framework.

     The kvm_open() function is the Sun kvm compatible open call.  Here, the
     errstr argument indicates how errors should be handled.  If it is NULL,
     no errors are reported and the application cannot know the specific
     nature of the failed kvm call.  If it is not NULL, errors are printed to
     stderr with errstr prepended to the message, as in perror(3).  Normally,
     the name of the program is used here.  The string is assumed to persist
     at least until the corresponding kvm_close() call.

     The kvm_openfiles() function provides BSD style error reporting.  Here,
     error messages are not printed out by the library.  Instead, the
     application obtains the error message corresponding to the most recent
     kvm library call using kvm_geterr() (see kvm_geterr(3)).  The results are
     undefined if the most recent kvm call did not produce an error.  Since
     kvm_geterr() requires a kvm descriptor, but the open routines return NULL
     on failure, kvm_geterr() cannot be used to get the error message if open
     fails.  Thus, kvm_openfiles() will place any error message in the errbuf
     argument.  This buffer should be _POSIX2_LINE_MAX characters large (from
     <limits.h>).

RETURN VALUES

     The kvm_open() and kvm_openfiles() functions both return a descriptor to
     be used in all subsequent kvm library calls.  The library is fully re-
     entrant.  On failure, NULL is returned, in which case kvm_openfiles()
     writes the error message into errbuf.

     The kvm_close() function returns 0 on success and -1 on failure.

SEE ALSO

     open(2), kvm(3), kvm_geterr(3), kvm_getprocs(3), kvm_nlist(3),
     kvm_read(3)

BUGS

     There should not be two open calls.  The ill-defined error semantics of
     the Sun library and the desire to have a backward-compatible library for
     BSD left little choice.

OpenBSD 5.1                     August 18, 2011                    OpenBSD 5.1