5.15. Interprocess CommunicationsSemaphores, message queues, and shared memory make up the Interprocess Communications (IPC) facility available in AIX. A semaphore is synchronization primitive, a message queue is a kernel-resident linked list of messages, and shared memory is memory that is shared between processes mapped into the address space of the process sharing the memory. 5.15.1. SemaphoresThere are two forms of synchronization mechanisms within the UNIX world. One is the System V IPC version, and the other is POSIX 1003.1b. System V semaphores allows for semaphore sets, meaning that a unique semaphore identifier may contain multiple semaphores. Whether a semaphore identifier contains one semaphore or a set of semaphores, each is determined when the semaphore is created with the semget system call. The second argument to semget determines the number of semaphores that will be associated with the semaphore identifier returned by semget. The semctl() or semop() system allows the programmer to control and operate on the semaphore set as needed. The POSIX 1003.1b semaphore mechanism allows programmers to create individual named and unnamed semaphores. The basic operation goes like this. The semaphore is created with the sem_init(). Once created, the semaphore can be used to synchronize access to shared resources by forcing the calling thread or process to wait on the semaphore before entering the critical section by calling sem_wait(). After the calling process is finished with the shared resource, it signals to the other processes or threads waiting that it is finished by posting the semaphore, sem_post(). These semaphores are ideal when resources must be shared between either two or more distinct processes (named semaphores) or individual threads within the same process (unnamed semaphore). AIX and Linux support both mechanisms. Table 5-11 gives a side-by-side comparison between AIX and Linux.
Semaphores are the primitive synchronization mechanism in many operating systems. The APIs mentioned are standard within the UNIX community. Semaphore sets are also a standard within UNIX, as discussed in detail in the next section. 5.15.2. System V Semaphore setsThe System V version of semaphore functions are semget(), semctl(), and semop(). They perform operations on sets of semaphores associated with a predefined identifier. In Linux, the semget(), semctl(), and semop() functions are completely compatible with AIX versions. The only noticeable difference is in semop(). In AIX, the semop() sets the ENOSPC ERRNO and in Linux it does not. However, this ERRNO is defined in Linux, which means no coding changes are necessary when migrating to Linux because any code that handles this error in AIX will be ignored in Linux. 5.15.3. Message Queues (mqueue.h)Both AIX and Linux provide fully POSIX.1b-compliant message queues. On Linux prior to version 2.6.6.rtl, message queues were implemented in a separate required linkable library (libmqueue) that was shipped for certain distributions of Linux. In Linux kernel version 2.6.6.rtl, the Linux team decided to include the libmqueue library in the glibc 2.3.4 (04/08/2004 in changelog). Although both AIX and Linux provide support for message queues, the ERRNOs they return for certain errors sometimes differ. Minor changes may be necessary in your code if your application takes certain actions based on these ERRNOs. Table 5-12 compares the ERRNO differences between AIX and Linux.
The default maximum size of a message queue (msg_qbytes) on Linux is set to the system parameter MSGMNB (16384 bytes). The msg_qbytes value can be raised beyond MSGMNB by using the msgctl function with the appropriate privileges. On Linux, the maximum size for a message text is set to MSGMAX (8192 bytes). 5.15.4. Shared MemoryOn most UNIX systems, including Linux, the system administrator can edit a master file in the /etc directory to define limits for IPC mechanisms such as shared memory. AIX uses a different method. In AIX, upper limits are defined for IPC mechanisms, which are not configurable. The individual IPC data structures are allocated and deallocated as needed, so memory requirements depend on the current system usage of IPC mechanisms. In AIX, the maximum size of a shared memory segment for 64-bit processes is 32TB. A 32-bit process cannot attach a shared memory segment larger than 2GB. 32-bit applications can use the shmat capability to obtain more than 11 segments when using the very large address space model without having to use extended shmat. In Linux, the default maximum shared memory size is 32MB. For applications that require large address space, this value is often too small. To allow for applications to allocate memory above the 32MB mark (for instance, 512MB), the Linux systems administrator must take the steps listed in the following example (which sets the shared memory maximum to 512MB):
Every time the machine reboots, the shared memory will be set to this value. A more permanent solution is to change the value of SHMMAX in /usr/src/linux/include/asm/shmparam.h and rebuild your kernel: The maximum value of SHMMAX can be set to 4GB-1 Both AIX and Linux define the standard shmid_ds and ipc_perm structures, and member variable names are the same; however, the Linux version does not contain all the members that AIX has. The following member variables are not defined in the Linux shmid_ds structure: __shm_cnattch (shm_cnattch[21]) /* In memory number attachments */ shm_handle /* segment identifier */ __shm_extshm (shm_extshm21) /* page granularity shmat */
There are two different shared memory types available for most flavors of UNIXSystem V IPC and BSD mmap. AIX and Linux implement both. The functions provide a rich set of APIs that enable two or more processes to share access to a single chunk of memory. Table 5-13 shows there is no difference between AIX and Linux in their implementation of shared memory.
Without IPC programming interfaces, processes and computers cannot share information across the network. A number of platform-independent APIsincluding Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), and Message Bus (MBUS)use IPC calls to implement their services. |