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+.\" Copyright (C) 2005 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
+.\"
+.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
+.\"
+.TH pipe 7 2024-05-02 "Linux man-pages (unreleased)"
+.SH NAME
+pipe \- overview of pipes and FIFOs
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+Pipes and FIFOs (also known as named pipes)
+provide a unidirectional interprocess communication channel.
+A pipe has a
+.I read end
+and a
+.IR "write end" .
+Data written to the write end of a pipe can be read
+from the read end of the pipe.
+.P
+A pipe is created using
+.BR pipe (2),
+which creates a new pipe and returns two file descriptors,
+one referring to the read end of the pipe,
+the other referring to the write end.
+Pipes can be used to create a communication channel between related
+processes; see
+.BR pipe (2)
+for an example.
+.P
+A FIFO (short for First In First Out) has a name within the filesystem
+(created using
+.BR mkfifo (3)),
+and is opened using
+.BR open (2).
+Any process may open a FIFO, assuming the file permissions allow it.
+The read end is opened using the
+.B O_RDONLY
+flag; the write end is opened using the
+.B O_WRONLY
+flag.
+See
+.BR fifo (7)
+for further details.
+.IR Note :
+although FIFOs have a pathname in the filesystem,
+I/O on FIFOs does not involve operations on the underlying device
+(if there is one).
+.SS I/O on pipes and FIFOs
+The only difference between pipes and FIFOs is the manner in which
+they are created and opened.
+Once these tasks have been accomplished,
+I/O on pipes and FIFOs has exactly the same semantics.
+.P
+If a process attempts to read from an empty pipe, then
+.BR read (2)
+will block until data is available.
+If a process attempts to write to a full pipe (see below), then
+.BR write (2)
+blocks until sufficient data has been read from the pipe
+to allow the write to complete.
+.P
+Nonblocking I/O is possible by using the
+.BR fcntl (2)
+.B F_SETFL
+operation to enable the
+.B O_NONBLOCK
+open file status flag or by opening a
+.BR fifo (7)
+with
+.BR O_NONBLOCK .
+If any process has the pipe open for writing, reads fail with
+.BR EAGAIN ;
+otherwise\[em]with no potential writers\[em]reads succeed and return empty.
+.P
+The communication channel provided by a pipe is a
+.IR "byte stream" :
+there is no concept of message boundaries.
+.P
+If all file descriptors referring to the write end of a pipe
+have been closed, then an attempt to
+.BR read (2)
+from the pipe will see end-of-file
+.RB ( read (2)
+will return 0).
+If all file descriptors referring to the read end of a pipe
+have been closed, then a
+.BR write (2)
+will cause a
+.B SIGPIPE
+signal to be generated for the calling process.
+If the calling process is ignoring this signal, then
+.BR write (2)
+fails with the error
+.BR EPIPE .
+An application that uses
+.BR pipe (2)
+and
+.BR fork (2)
+should use suitable
+.BR close (2)
+calls to close unnecessary duplicate file descriptors;
+this ensures that end-of-file and
+.BR SIGPIPE / EPIPE
+are delivered when appropriate.
+.P
+It is not possible to apply
+.BR lseek (2)
+to a pipe.
+.SS Pipe capacity
+A pipe has a limited capacity.
+If the pipe is full, then a
+.BR write (2)
+will block or fail, depending on whether the
+.B O_NONBLOCK
+flag is set (see below).
+Different implementations have different limits for the pipe capacity.
+Applications should not rely on a particular capacity:
+an application should be designed so that a reading process consumes data
+as soon as it is available,
+so that a writing process does not remain blocked.
+.P
+Before Linux 2.6.11, the capacity of a pipe was the same as
+the system page size (e.g., 4096 bytes on i386).
+Since Linux 2.6.11, the pipe capacity is 16 pages
+(i.e., 65,536 bytes in a system with a page size of 4096 bytes).
+Since Linux 2.6.35, the default pipe capacity is 16 pages,
+but the capacity can be queried and set using the
+.BR fcntl (2)
+.B F_GETPIPE_SZ
+and
+.B F_SETPIPE_SZ
+operations.
+See
+.BR fcntl (2)
+for more information.
+.P
+The following
+.BR ioctl (2)
+operation, which can be applied to a file descriptor
+that refers to either end of a pipe,
+places a count of the number of unread bytes in the pipe in the
+.I int
+buffer pointed to by the final argument of the call:
+.P
+.in +4n
+.EX
+ioctl(fd, FIONREAD, &nbytes);
+.EE
+.in
+.P
+The
+.B FIONREAD
+operation is not specified in any standard,
+but is provided on many implementations.
+.\"
+.SS /proc files
+On Linux, the following files control how much memory can be used for pipes:
+.TP
+.IR /proc/sys/fs/pipe\-max\-pages " (only in Linux 2.6.34)"
+.\" commit b492e95be0ae672922f4734acf3f5d35c30be948
+An upper limit, in pages, on the capacity that an unprivileged user
+(one without the
+.B CAP_SYS_RESOURCE
+capability)
+can set for a pipe.
+.IP
+The default value for this limit is 16 times the default pipe capacity
+(see above); the lower limit is two pages.
+.IP
+This interface was removed in Linux 2.6.35, in favor of
+.IR /proc/sys/fs/pipe\-max\-size .
+.TP
+.IR /proc/sys/fs/pipe\-max\-size " (since Linux 2.6.35)"
+.\" commit ff9da691c0498ff81fdd014e7a0731dab2337dac
+The maximum size (in bytes) of individual pipes that can be set
+.\" This limit is not checked on pipe creation, where the capacity is
+.\" always PIPE_DEF_BUFS, regardless of pipe-max-size
+by users without the
+.B CAP_SYS_RESOURCE
+capability.
+The value assigned to this file may be rounded upward,
+to reflect the value actually employed for a convenient implementation.
+To determine the rounded-up value,
+display the contents of this file after assigning a value to it.
+.IP
+The default value for this file is 1048576 (1\ MiB).
+The minimum value that can be assigned to this file is the system page size.
+Attempts to set a limit less than the page size cause
+.BR write (2)
+to fail with the error
+.BR EINVAL .
+.IP
+Since Linux 4.9,
+.\" commit 086e774a57fba4695f14383c0818994c0b31da7c
+the value on this file also acts as a ceiling on the default capacity
+of a new pipe or newly opened FIFO.
+.TP
+.IR /proc/sys/fs/pipe\-user\-pages\-hard " (since Linux 4.5)"
+.\" commit 759c01142a5d0f364a462346168a56de28a80f52
+The hard limit on the total size (in pages) of all pipes created or set by
+a single unprivileged user (i.e., one with neither the
+.B CAP_SYS_RESOURCE
+nor the
+.B CAP_SYS_ADMIN
+capability).
+So long as the total number of pages allocated to pipe buffers
+for this user is at this limit,
+attempts to create new pipes will be denied,
+and attempts to increase a pipe's capacity will be denied.
+.IP
+When the value of this limit is zero (which is the default),
+no hard limit is applied.
+.\" The default was chosen to avoid breaking existing applications that
+.\" make intensive use of pipes (e.g., for splicing).
+.TP
+.IR /proc/sys/fs/pipe\-user\-pages\-soft " (since Linux 4.5)"
+.\" commit 759c01142a5d0f364a462346168a56de28a80f52
+The soft limit on the total size (in pages) of all pipes created or set by
+a single unprivileged user (i.e., one with neither the
+.B CAP_SYS_RESOURCE
+nor the
+.B CAP_SYS_ADMIN
+capability).
+So long as the total number of pages allocated to pipe buffers
+for this user is at this limit,
+individual pipes created by a user will be limited to one page,
+and attempts to increase a pipe's capacity will be denied.
+.IP
+When the value of this limit is zero, no soft limit is applied.
+The default value for this file is 16384,
+which permits creating up to 1024 pipes with the default capacity.
+.P
+Before Linux 4.9, some bugs affected the handling of the
+.I pipe\-user\-pages\-soft
+and
+.I pipe\-user\-pages\-hard
+limits; see BUGS.
+.\"
+.SS PIPE_BUF
+POSIX.1 says that writes of less than
+.B PIPE_BUF
+bytes must be atomic: the output data is written to the pipe as a
+contiguous sequence.
+Writes of more than
+.B PIPE_BUF
+bytes may be nonatomic: the kernel may interleave the data
+with data written by other processes.
+POSIX.1 requires
+.B PIPE_BUF
+to be at least 512 bytes.
+(On Linux,
+.B PIPE_BUF
+is 4096 bytes.)
+The precise semantics depend on whether the file descriptor is nonblocking
+.RB ( O_NONBLOCK ),
+whether there are multiple writers to the pipe, and on
+.IR n ,
+the number of bytes to be written:
+.TP
+\fBO_NONBLOCK\fP disabled, \fIn\fP <= \fBPIPE_BUF\fP
+All
+.I n
+bytes are written atomically;
+.BR write (2)
+may block if there is not room for
+.I n
+bytes to be written immediately
+.TP
+\fBO_NONBLOCK\fP enabled, \fIn\fP <= \fBPIPE_BUF\fP
+If there is room to write
+.I n
+bytes to the pipe, then
+.BR write (2)
+succeeds immediately, writing all
+.I n
+bytes; otherwise
+.BR write (2)
+fails, with
+.I errno
+set to
+.BR EAGAIN .
+.TP
+\fBO_NONBLOCK\fP disabled, \fIn\fP > \fBPIPE_BUF\fP
+The write is nonatomic: the data given to
+.BR write (2)
+may be interleaved with
+.BR write (2)s
+by other process;
+the
+.BR write (2)
+blocks until
+.I n
+bytes have been written.
+.TP
+\fBO_NONBLOCK\fP enabled, \fIn\fP > \fBPIPE_BUF\fP
+If the pipe is full, then
+.BR write (2)
+fails, with
+.I errno
+set to
+.BR EAGAIN .
+Otherwise, from 1 to
+.I n
+bytes may be written (i.e., a "partial write" may occur;
+the caller should check the return value from
+.BR write (2)
+to see how many bytes were actually written),
+and these bytes may be interleaved with writes by other processes.
+.SS Open file status flags
+The only open file status flags that can be meaningfully applied to
+a pipe or FIFO are
+.B O_NONBLOCK
+and
+.BR O_ASYNC .
+.P
+Setting the
+.B O_ASYNC
+flag for the read end of a pipe causes a signal
+.RB ( SIGIO
+by default) to be generated when new input becomes available on the pipe.
+The target for delivery of signals must be set using the
+.BR fcntl (2)
+.B F_SETOWN
+command.
+On Linux,
+.B O_ASYNC
+is supported for pipes and FIFOs only since Linux 2.6.
+.SS Portability notes
+On some systems (but not Linux), pipes are bidirectional:
+data can be transmitted in both directions between the pipe ends.
+POSIX.1 requires only unidirectional pipes.
+Portable applications should avoid reliance on
+bidirectional pipe semantics.
+.SS BUGS
+Before Linux 4.9, some bugs affected the handling of the
+.I pipe\-user\-pages\-soft
+and
+.I pipe\-user\-pages\-hard
+limits when using the
+.BR fcntl (2)
+.B F_SETPIPE_SZ
+operation to change a pipe's capacity:
+.\" These bugs where remedied by a series of patches, in particular,
+.\" commit b0b91d18e2e97b741b294af9333824ecc3fadfd8 and
+.\" commit a005ca0e6813e1d796a7422a7e31d8b8d6555df1
+.IP (a) 5
+When increasing the pipe capacity, the checks against the soft and
+hard limits were made against existing consumption,
+and excluded the memory required for the increased pipe capacity.
+The new increase in pipe capacity could then push the total
+memory used by the user for pipes (possibly far) over a limit.
+(This could also trigger the problem described next.)
+.IP
+Starting with Linux 4.9,
+the limit checking includes the memory required for the new pipe capacity.
+.IP (b)
+The limit checks were performed even when the new pipe capacity was
+less than the existing pipe capacity.
+This could lead to problems if a user set a large pipe capacity,
+and then the limits were lowered, with the result that the user could
+no longer decrease the pipe capacity.
+.IP
+Starting with Linux 4.9, checks against the limits
+are performed only when increasing a pipe's capacity;
+an unprivileged user can always decrease a pipe's capacity.
+.IP (c)
+The accounting and checking against the limits were done as follows:
+.RS
+.IP (1) 5
+.PD 0
+Test whether the user has exceeded the limit.
+.IP (2)
+Make the new pipe buffer allocation.
+.IP (3)
+Account new allocation against the limits.
+.PD
+.RE
+.IP
+This was racey.
+Multiple processes could pass point (1) simultaneously,
+and then allocate pipe buffers that were accounted for only in step (3),
+with the result that the user's pipe buffer
+allocation could be pushed over the limit.
+.IP
+Starting with Linux 4.9,
+the accounting step is performed before doing the allocation,
+and the operation fails if the limit would be exceeded.
+.P
+Before Linux 4.9, bugs similar to points (a) and (c) could also occur
+when the kernel allocated memory for a new pipe buffer;
+that is, when calling
+.BR pipe (2)
+and when opening a previously unopened FIFO.
+.SH SEE ALSO
+.BR mkfifo (1),
+.BR dup (2),
+.BR fcntl (2),
+.BR open (2),
+.BR pipe (2),
+.BR poll (2),
+.BR select (2),
+.BR socketpair (2),
+.BR splice (2),
+.BR stat (2),
+.BR tee (2),
+.BR vmsplice (2),
+.BR mkfifo (3),
+.BR epoll (7),
+.BR fifo (7)