xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man9/errno.9 (revision 723d09ce8e2d3ae8b20c3e0b7e19547f389a870f)
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33.Dd December 3, 2004
34.Dt ERRNO 9
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm errno
38.Nd kernel internal error numbers
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.In sys/errno.h
41.Sh DESCRIPTION
42This section provides an overview of the error numbers used internally
43by the kernel and indicate neither success nor failure.
44These error numbers are not returned to userland code.
45.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
46Kernel functions that indicate success or failure by means of either 0
47or an
48.Xr errno 2
49value sometimes have a need to indicate that
50.Dq special
51handling is required at an upper layer or, in the case of
52.Xr ioctl 2
53processing, that
54.Dq nothing was wrong but the request was not handled .
55To handle these cases, some negative
56.Xr errno 2
57values are defined which are handled by the kernel before returning a
58different
59.Xr errno 2
60value to userland or simply zero.
61.Pp
62The following is a list of the defined names and their meanings as
63given in
64.In errno.h .
65It is important to note that the value \-1 is
66.Em not
67used, since it is commonly used to indicate generic failure and leaves
68it up to the caller to determine the action to take.
69.Bl -hang -width Ds
70.It Er \-2 EJUSTRETURN Em "Modify regs, just return" .
71No more work is required and the function should just return.
72.It Er \-3 ERESTART Em "Restart syscall" .
73The system call should be restarted.
74This typically means that the machine dependent system call trap code
75will reposition the process's instruction pointer or program counter
76to re-execute the current system call with no other work required.
77.It Er \-4 EPASSTHROUGH Em "Operation not handled by this layer" .
78The operation was not handled and should be passed through to another
79layer.
80This often occurs when processing
81.Xr ioctl 2
82requests since lower layer processing may not handle something that
83subsequent code at a higher level will.
84.It Er \-5 EDUPFD Em "Duplicate file descriptor."
85This error is returned from the device open routine indicating that
86the
87.Ar l_dupfd
88field contains the file descriptor information to be returned to the caller,
89instead of the file descriptor that has been opened already.
90This error is used by cloning device multiplexors.
91Cloning device multiplexors open a new file descriptor and associate that
92file descriptor with the appropriate cloned device.
93They set
94.Ar l_dupfd
95to that new file descriptor and return
96.Er EDUPFD .
97.Xr vn_open 9
98takes the file descriptor pointed to by
99.Ar l_dupfd
100and arranges for it to be copied to the file descriptor that the open
101call will return.
102.It Er \-6 EMOVEFD Em "Move file descriptor."
103This error is similar to
104.Er EDUPFD
105except that the file descriptor in
106.Ar l_dupfd
107is closed after it has been copied.
108.El
109.Sh SEE ALSO
110.Xr errno 2 ,
111.Xr ioctl 9
112.Sh HISTORY
113An
114.Nm
115manual page appeared in
116.At v6 .
117This
118.Nm
119manual page appeared in
120.Nx 3.0 .
121