io_uring_setup.2

.\" Copyright (C) 2019 Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
.\" Copyright (C) 2019 Jon Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
.\" Copyright (C) 2019 Red Hat, Inc.
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.0-or-later
.\"
.TH io_uring_setup 2 2019-01-29 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
io_uring_setup \- setup a context for performing asynchronous I/O
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.BR "#include <liburing.h>"
.PP
.BI "int io_uring_setup(u32 " entries ", struct io_uring_params *" p );
.fi
.PP
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
The
.BR io_uring_setup (2)
system call sets up a submission queue (SQ) and completion queue (CQ) with at
least
.I entries
entries, and returns a file descriptor which can be used to perform
subsequent operations on the io_uring instance.  The submission and
completion queues are shared between userspace and the kernel, which
eliminates the need to copy data when initiating and completing I/O.

.I params
is used by the application to pass options to the kernel, and by the
kernel to convey information about the ring buffers.
.PP
.in +4n
.EX
struct io_uring_params {
    __u32 sq_entries;
    __u32 cq_entries;
    __u32 flags;
    __u32 sq_thread_cpu;
    __u32 sq_thread_idle;
    __u32 features;
    __u32 wq_fd;
    __u32 resv[3];
    struct io_sqring_offsets sq_off;
    struct io_cqring_offsets cq_off;
};
.EE
.in
.PP
The
.IR flags ,
.IR sq_thread_cpu ,
and
.I sq_thread_idle
fields are used to configure the io_uring instance.
.I flags
is a bit mask of 0 or more of the following values ORed
together:
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_IOPOLL
Perform busy-waiting for an I/O completion, as opposed to getting
notifications via an asynchronous IRQ (Interrupt Request).  The file
system (if any) and block device must support polling in order for
this to work.  Busy-waiting provides lower latency, but may consume
more CPU resources than interrupt driven I/O.  Currently, this feature
is usable only on a file descriptor opened using the
.B O_DIRECT
flag.  When a read or write is submitted to a polled context, the
application must poll for completions on the CQ ring by calling
.BR io_uring_enter (2).
It is illegal to mix and match polled and non-polled I/O on an io_uring
instance.

This is only applicable for storage devices for now, and the storage device
must be configured for polling. How to do that depends on the device type
in question. For NVMe devices, the nvme driver must be loaded with the
.I poll_queues
parameter set to the desired number of polling queues. The polling queues
will be shared appropriately between the CPUs in the system, if the number
is less than the number of online CPU threads.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_HYBRID_IOPOLL
This flag must be used with
.B IORING_SETUP_IOPOLL
flag. Hybrid io polling is a feature based on iopoll, it differs from strict
polling in that it will delay a bit before doing completion side polling, to
avoid wasting too much CPU resources. Like
.B IOPOLL
, it requires that devices support polling.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_SQPOLL
When this flag is specified, a kernel thread is created to perform
submission queue polling.  An io_uring instance configured in this way
enables an application to issue I/O without ever context switching
into the kernel.  By using the submission queue to fill in new
submission queue entries and watching for completions on the
completion queue, the application can submit and reap I/Os without
doing a single system call.

If the kernel thread is idle for more than
.I sq_thread_idle
milliseconds, it will set the
.B IORING_SQ_NEED_WAKEUP
bit in the
.I flags
field of the
.IR "struct io_sq_ring" .
When this happens, the application must call
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
to wake the kernel thread.  If I/O is kept busy, the kernel thread
will never sleep.  An application making use of this feature will need
to guard the
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
call with the following code sequence:

.in +4n
.EX
/*
 * Ensure that the wakeup flag is read after the tail pointer
 * has been written. It's important to use memory load acquire
 * semantics for the flags read, as otherwise the application
 * and the kernel might not agree on the consistency of the
 * wakeup flag.
 */
unsigned flags = atomic_load_relaxed(sq_ring->flags);
if (flags & IORING_SQ_NEED_WAKEUP)
    io_uring_enter(fd, 0, 0, IORING_ENTER_SQ_WAKEUP);
.EE
.in

where
.I sq_ring
is a submission queue ring setup using the
.I struct io_sqring_offsets
described below.
.TP
.BR
Note that, when using a ring setup with
.BR IORING_SETUP_SQPOLL ,
you never directly call the
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
system call. That is usually taken care of by liburing's
.BR io_uring_submit (3)
function. It automatically determines if you are using
polling mode or not and deals with when your program needs to call
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
without you having to bother about it.
.TP
.BR
Before version 5.11 of the Linux kernel, to successfully use this feature, the
application must register a set of files to be used for IO through
.BR io_uring_register (2)
using the
.B IORING_REGISTER_FILES
opcode. Failure to do so will result in submitted IO being errored with
.BR EBADF .
The presence of this feature can be detected by the
.B IORING_FEAT_SQPOLL_NONFIXED
feature flag.
In version 5.11 and later, it is no longer necessary to register files to use
this feature. 5.11 also allows using this as non-root, if the user has the
.B CAP_SYS_NICE
capability. In 5.13 this requirement was also relaxed, and no special privileges
are needed for SQPOLL in newer kernels. Certain stable kernels older than 5.13
may also support unprivileged SQPOLL.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_SQ_AFF
If this flag is specified, then the poll thread will be bound to the
cpu set in the
.I sq_thread_cpu
field of the
.IR "struct io_uring_params" .
This flag is only meaningful when
.B IORING_SETUP_SQPOLL
is specified. When cgroup setting
.I cpuset.cpus
changes (typically in container environment), the bounded cpu set may be
changed as well.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_CQSIZE
Create the completion queue with
.I "struct io_uring_params.cq_entries"
entries.  The value must be greater than
.IR entries ,
and may be rounded up to the next power-of-two.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_CLAMP
If this flag is specified, and if
.IR entries
exceeds
.BR IORING_MAX_ENTRIES ,
then
.I entries
will be clamped at
.BR IORING_MAX_ENTRIES .
If the flag
.B IORING_SETUP_CQSIZE
is set, and if the value of
.I "struct io_uring_params.cq_entries"
exceeds
.BR IORING_MAX_CQ_ENTRIES ,
then it will be clamped at
.BR IORING_MAX_CQ_ENTRIES .
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_ATTACH_WQ
This flag should be set in conjunction with
.I "struct io_uring_params.wq_fd"
being set to an existing io_uring ring file descriptor. When set, the
io_uring instance being created will share the asynchronous worker
thread backend of the specified io_uring ring, rather than create a new
separate thread pool. Additionally the sq polling thread will be shared,
if
.B IORING_SETUP_SQPOLL
is set.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_R_DISABLED
If this flag is specified, the io_uring ring starts in a disabled state.
In this state, restrictions can be registered, but submissions are not allowed.
See
.BR io_uring_register (2)
for details on how to enable the ring. Available since 5.10.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_SUBMIT_ALL
Normally io_uring stops submitting a batch of requests, if one of these requests
results in an error. This can cause submission of less than what is expected,
if a request ends in error while being submitted. If the ring is created with
this flag,
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
will continue submitting requests even if it encounters an error submitting
a request. CQEs are still posted for errored request regardless of whether or
not this flag is set at ring creation time, the only difference is if the
submit sequence is halted or continued when an error is observed. Available
since 5.18.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_COOP_TASKRUN
By default, io_uring will interrupt a task running in userspace when a
completion event comes in. This is to ensure that completions run in a timely
manner. For a lot of use cases, this is overkill and can cause reduced
performance from both the inter-processor interrupt used to do this, the
kernel/user transition, the needless interruption of the tasks userspace
activities, and reduced batching if completions come in at a rapid rate. Most
applications don't need the forceful interruption, as the events are processed
at any kernel/user transition. The exception are setups where the application
uses multiple threads operating on the same ring, where the application
waiting on completions isn't the one that submitted them. For most other
use cases, setting this flag will improve performance. Available since 5.19.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_TASKRUN_FLAG
Used in conjunction with
.BR IORING_SETUP_COOP_TASKRUN ,
this provides a flag,
.BR IORING_SQ_TASKRUN ,
which is set in the SQ ring
.I flags
whenever completions are pending that should be processed. liburing will check
for this flag even when doing
.BR io_uring_peek_cqe (3)
and enter the kernel to process them, and applications can do the same. This
makes
.B IORING_SETUP_TASKRUN_FLAG
safe to use even when applications rely on a peek style operation on the CQ
ring to see if anything might be pending to reap. Available since 5.19.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_SQE128
If set, io_uring will use 128-byte SQEs rather than the normal 64-byte sized
variant. This is a requirement for using certain request types, as of 5.19
only the
.B IORING_OP_URING_CMD
passthrough command for NVMe passthrough needs this. Available since 5.19.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_CQE32
If set, io_uring will use 32-byte CQEs rather than the normal 16-byte sized
variant. This is a requirement for using certain request types, as of 5.19
only the
.B IORING_OP_URING_CMD
passthrough command for NVMe passthrough needs this. Available since 5.19.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_SINGLE_ISSUER
A hint to the kernel that only a single task (or thread) will submit requests, which is
used for internal optimisations. The submission task is either the task that created the
ring, or if
.B IORING_SETUP_R_DISABLED
is specified then it is the task that enables the ring through
.BR io_uring_register (2) .
The kernel enforces this rule, failing requests with
.B -EEXIST
if the restriction is violated.
Note that when
.B IORING_SETUP_SQPOLL
is set it is considered that the polling task is doing all submissions
on behalf of the userspace and so it always complies with the rule disregarding
how many userspace tasks do
.BR io_uring_enter (2).
Available since 6.0.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_DEFER_TASKRUN
By default, io_uring will process all outstanding work at the end of any system
call or thread interrupt. This can delay the application from making other progress.
Setting this flag will hint to io_uring that it should defer work until an
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
call with the 
.B IORING_ENTER_GETEVENTS
flag set. This allows the application to request work to run just before it wants to
process completions.
This flag requires the
.B IORING_SETUP_SINGLE_ISSUER
flag to be set, and also enforces that the call to
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
is called from the same thread that submitted requests.
Note that if this flag is set then it is the application's responsibility to periodically
trigger work (for example via any of the CQE waiting functions) or else completions may
not be delivered.
Available since 6.1.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_NO_MMAP
By default, io_uring allocates kernel memory that callers must subsequently
.BR mmap (2).
If this flag is set, io_uring instead uses caller-allocated buffers;
.I p->cq_off.user_addr
must point to the memory for the sq/cq rings, and
.I p->sq_off.user_addr
must point to the memory for the sqes.
Each allocation must be contiguous memory.
Typically, callers should allocate this memory by using
.BR mmap (2)
to allocate a huge page.
If this flag is set, a subsequent attempt to
.BR mmap (2)
the io_uring file descriptor will fail.
Available since 6.5.
.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_REGISTERED_FD_ONLY
If this flag is set, io_uring will register the ring file descriptor, and
return the registered descriptor index, without ever allocating an unregistered
file descriptor. The caller will need to use
.B IORING_REGISTER_USE_REGISTERED_RING
when calling
.BR io_uring_register (2).
This flag only makes sense when used alongside with
.BR IORING_SETUP_NO_MMAP ,
which also needs to be set.
Available since 6.5.

.TP
.B IORING_SETUP_NO_SQARRAY
If this flag is set, entries in the submission queue will be submitted in order,
wrapping around to the first entry after reaching the end of the queue. In other
words, there will be no more indirection via the array of submission entries,
and the queue will be indexed directly by the submission queue tail and the
range of indexed represented by it modulo queue size. Subsequently, the user
should not map the array of submission queue entries, and the corresponding
offset in
.I struct io_sqring_offsets
will be set to zero. Available since 6.6.

.PP
If no flags are specified, the io_uring instance is setup for
interrupt driven I/O.  I/O may be submitted using
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
and can be reaped by polling the completion queue.

The
.I resv
array must be initialized to zero.

.I features
is filled in by the kernel, which specifies various features supported
by current kernel version.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_SINGLE_MMAP
If this flag is set, the two SQ and CQ rings can be mapped with a single
.BR mmap (2)
call. The SQEs must still be allocated separately. This brings the necessary
.BR mmap (2)
calls down from three to two. Available since kernel 5.4.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_NODROP
If this flag is set, io_uring supports almost never dropping completion events.
A dropped event can only occur if the kernel runs out of memory, in which case
you have worse problems than a lost event. Your application and others will
likely get OOM killed anyway. If a completion event occurs and the CQ ring is
full, the kernel stores the event internally until such a time that the CQ ring
has room for more entries. In earlier kernels, if this overflow condition is
entered, attempting to submit more IO would fail with the
.B -EBUSY
error value, if it can't flush the overflown events to the CQ ring. If this
happens, the application must reap events from the CQ ring and attempt the
submit again. If the kernel has no free memory to store the event internally
it will be visible by an increase in the overflow value on the cqring.
Available since kernel 5.5. Additionally
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
will return
.B -EBADR
the next time it would otherwise sleep waiting for completions (since kernel 5.19).

.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_SUBMIT_STABLE
If this flag is set, applications can be certain that any data for
async offload has been consumed when the kernel has consumed the SQE. Available
since kernel 5.5.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_RW_CUR_POS
If this flag is set, applications can specify
.I offset
==
.B -1
with
.BR IORING_OP_{READV,WRITEV} ,
.BR IORING_OP_{READ,WRITE}_FIXED ,
and
.B IORING_OP_{READ,WRITE}
to mean current file position, which behaves like
.BR preadv2 (2)
and
.BR pwritev2 (2)
with
.I offset
==
.BR -1 .
It'll use (and update) the current file position. This obviously comes
with the caveat that if the application has multiple reads or writes in flight,
then the end result will not be as expected. This is similar to threads sharing
a file descriptor and doing IO using the current file position. Available since
kernel 5.6.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_CUR_PERSONALITY
If this flag is set, then io_uring guarantees that both sync and async
execution of a request assumes the credentials of the task that called
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
to queue the requests. If this flag isn't set, then requests are issued with
the credentials of the task that originally registered the io_uring. If only
one task is using a ring, then this flag doesn't matter as the credentials
will always be the same. Note that this is the default behavior, tasks can
still register different personalities through
.BR io_uring_register (2)
with
.B IORING_REGISTER_PERSONALITY
and specify the personality to use in the sqe. Available since kernel 5.6.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_FAST_POLL
If this flag is set, then io_uring supports using an internal poll mechanism
to drive data/space readiness. This means that requests that cannot read or
write data to a file no longer need to be punted to an async thread for
handling, instead they will begin operation when the file is ready. This is
similar to doing poll + read/write in userspace, but eliminates the need to do
so. If this flag is set, requests waiting on space/data consume a lot less
resources doing so as they are not blocking a thread. Available since kernel
5.7.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_POLL_32BITS
If this flag is set, the
.B IORING_OP_POLL_ADD
command accepts the full 32-bit range of epoll based flags. Most notably
.B EPOLLEXCLUSIVE
which allows exclusive (waking single waiters) behavior. Available since kernel
5.9.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_SQPOLL_NONFIXED
If this flag is set, the
.B IORING_SETUP_SQPOLL
feature no longer requires the use of fixed files. Any normal file descriptor
can be used for IO commands without needing registration. Available since
kernel 5.11.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_EXT_ARG
If this flag is set, then the
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
system call supports passing in an extended argument instead of just the
.I "sigset_t"
of earlier kernels. This.
extended argument is of type
.I "struct io_uring_getevents_arg"
and allows the caller to pass in both a
.I sigset_t
and a timeout argument for waiting on events. The struct layout is as follows:
.TP
.in +8n
.EX
struct io_uring_getevents_arg {
    __u64 sigmask;
    __u32 sigmask_sz;
    __u32 pad;
    __u64 ts;
};
.EE

and a pointer to this struct must be passed in if
.B IORING_ENTER_EXT_ARG
is set in the flags for the enter system call. Available since kernel 5.11.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_NATIVE_WORKERS
If this flag is set, io_uring is using native workers for its async helpers.
Previous kernels used kernel threads that assumed the identity of the
original io_uring owning task, but later kernels will actively create what
looks more like regular process threads instead. Available since kernel
5.12.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_RSRC_TAGS
If this flag is set, then io_uring supports a variety of features related
to fixed files and buffers. In particular, it indicates that registered
buffers can be updated in-place, whereas before the full set would have to
be unregistered first. Available since kernel 5.13.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_CQE_SKIP
If this flag is set, then io_uring supports setting
.B IOSQE_CQE_SKIP_SUCCESS
in the submitted SQE, indicating that no CQE should be generated for this
SQE if it executes normally. If an error happens processing the SQE, a
CQE with the appropriate error value will still be generated. Available since
kernel 5.17.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_LINKED_FILE
If this flag is set, then io_uring supports sane assignment of files for SQEs
that have dependencies. For example, if a chain of SQEs are submitted with
.BR IOSQE_IO_LINK ,
then kernels without this flag will prepare the file for each link upfront.
If a previous link opens a file with a known index, eg if direct descriptors
are used with open or accept, then file assignment needs to happen post
execution of that SQE. If this flag is set, then the kernel will defer
file assignment until execution of a given request is started. Available since
kernel 5.17.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_REG_REG_RING
If this flag is set, then io_uring supports calling
.BR io_uring_register (2)
using a registered ring fd, via
.BR IORING_REGISTER_USE_REGISTERED_RING .
Available since kernel 6.3.
.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_MIN_TIMEOUT
If this flag is set, then io_uring supports passing in a minimum batch wait
timeout. See
.BR io_uring_submit_and_wait_min_timeout (3)
for more details.

.TP
.B IORING_FEAT_RECVSEND_BUNDLE
If this flag is set, then io_uring supports bundled send and recv operations.
See
.BR io_uring_prep_send_bundle (3)
for more information. Also implies support for provided buffers in send
operations.
.PP
The rest of the fields in the
.I struct io_uring_params
are filled in by the kernel, and provide the information necessary to
memory map the submission queue, completion queue, and the array of
submission queue entries.
.I sq_entries
specifies the number of submission queue entries allocated.
.I sq_off
describes the offsets of various ring buffer fields:
.PP
.in +4n
.EX
struct io_sqring_offsets {
    __u32 head;
    __u32 tail;
    __u32 ring_mask;
    __u32 ring_entries;
    __u32 flags;
    __u32 dropped;
    __u32 array;
    __u32 resv1;
    __u64 user_addr;
};
.EE
.in
.PP
Taken together,
.I sq_entries
and
.I sq_off
provide all of the information necessary for accessing the submission
queue ring buffer and the submission queue entry array.  The
submission queue can be mapped with a call like:
.PP
.in +4n
.EX
ptr = mmap(0, sq_off.array + sq_entries * sizeof(__u32),
           PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED|MAP_POPULATE,
           ring_fd, IORING_OFF_SQ_RING);
.EE
.in
.PP
where
.I sq_off
is the
.I io_sqring_offsets
structure, and
.I ring_fd
is the file descriptor returned from
.BR io_uring_setup (2).
The addition of
.I sq_off.array
to the length of the region accounts for the fact that the ring is
located at the end of the data structure.  As an example, the ring
buffer head pointer can be accessed by adding
.I sq_off.head
to the address returned from
.BR mmap (2):
.PP
.in +4n
.EX
head = ptr + sq_off.head;
.EE
.in

The
.I flags
field is used by the kernel to communicate state information to the
application.  Currently, it is used to inform the application when a
call to
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
is necessary.  See the documentation for the
.B IORING_SETUP_SQPOLL
flag above.
The
.I dropped
member is incremented for each invalid submission queue entry
encountered in the ring buffer.

The head and tail track the ring buffer state.  The tail is
incremented by the application when submitting new I/O, and the head
is incremented by the kernel when the I/O has been successfully
submitted.  Determining the index of the head or tail into the ring is
accomplished by applying a mask:
.PP
.in +4n
.EX
index = tail & ring_mask;
.EE
.in
.PP
The array of submission queue entries is mapped with:
.PP
.in +4n
.EX
sqentries = mmap(0, sq_entries * sizeof(struct io_uring_sqe),
                 PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED|MAP_POPULATE,
                 ring_fd, IORING_OFF_SQES);
.EE
.in
.PP
The completion queue is described by
.I cq_entries
and
.I cq_off
shown here:
.PP
.in +4n
.EX
struct io_cqring_offsets {
    __u32 head;
    __u32 tail;
    __u32 ring_mask;
    __u32 ring_entries;
    __u32 overflow;
    __u32 cqes;
    __u32 flags;
    __u32 resv1;
    __u64 user_addr;
};
.EE
.in
.PP
The completion queue is simpler, since the entries are not separated
from the queue itself, and can be mapped with:
.PP
.in +4n
.EX
ptr = mmap(0, cq_off.cqes + cq_entries * sizeof(struct io_uring_cqe),
           PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED|MAP_POPULATE, ring_fd,
           IORING_OFF_CQ_RING);
.EE
.in
.PP
Closing the file descriptor returned by
.BR io_uring_setup (2)
will free all resources associated with the io_uring context. Note that this
may happen asynchronously within the kernel, so it is not guaranteed that
resources are freed immediately.
.PP
.SH RETURN VALUE
.BR io_uring_setup (2)
returns a new file descriptor on success.  The application may then
provide the file descriptor in a subsequent
.BR mmap (2)
call to map the submission and completion queues, or to the
.BR io_uring_register (2)
or
.BR io_uring_enter (2)
system calls.

On error, a negative error code is returned. The caller should not rely on
.I errno
variable.
.PP
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EFAULT
.I params
is outside your accessible address space.
.TP
.B EINVAL
The resv array contains non-zero data, p.flags contains an unsupported
flag,
.I entries
is out of bounds,
.B IORING_SETUP_SQ_AFF
was specified, but
.B IORING_SETUP_SQPOLL
was not, or
.B IORING_SETUP_CQSIZE
was specified, but
.I io_uring_params.cq_entries
was invalid.
.B IORING_SETUP_REGISTERED_FD_ONLY
was specified, but
.B IORING_SETUP_NO_MMAP
was not.
.TP
.B EMFILE
The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors has been
reached (see the description of
.B RLIMIT_NOFILE
in
.BR getrlimit (2)).
.TP
.B ENFILE
The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been
reached.
.TP
.B ENOMEM
Insufficient kernel resources are available.
.TP
.B EPERM
.B IORING_SETUP_SQPOLL
was specified, but the effective user ID of the caller did not have sufficient
privileges.
.TP
.B EPERM
.I /proc/sys/kernel/io_uring_disabled
has the value 2, or it has the value 1 and the calling process does not hold the
.B CAP_SYS_ADMIN
capability or is not a member of
.IR /proc/sys/kernel/io_uring_group .
.TP
.B ENXIO
.B IORING_SETUP_ATTACH_WQ
was set, but
.I params.wq_fd
did not refer to an io_uring instance or refers to an instance that is in the
process of shutting down.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR io_uring_register (2),
.BR io_uring_enter (2)