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msync

Intro

msync - synchronize a file with a memory map

Description

The msync() system call causes all changes made to the in-core copy of a file mapped by a mapping handled by the "msync" call to be written to the storage device on which the file resides or, depending on the flags, to be discarded.

Advantages of using msync are that is allows to synchronize a region of a file to with a copy in a memory mapped region. This can help to avoid data corruption issues when a program exits abruptly.

Drawbacks of msync can be related to the performance of synchronizing the data. Synchronous updates could hurt performance in scenarios where high throughput is desired.

Arguments

  • addr:void*[K] - Pointer to the start of the memory region. Must be aligned to the system page size.
  • length:size_t[K] - Size of the memory region in bytes.
  • flags:int[K] - Flags for how to look for changes.

Available Tags

  • K - Originated from kernel-space.
  • U - Originated from user space (for example, pointer to user space memory used to get it)
  • TOCTOU - Vulnerable to TOCTOU (time of check, time of use)
  • OPT - Optional argument - might not always be available (passed with null value)

Hooks

sys_msync

Type

Kprobe

Purpose

Track when and with what parameters the sys_msync syscall is called.

Example Use Case

A client-server application where the server keeps track of state using a file and the clients operate on that file by reading and writing to it without calling msync. A msync event could be used to check when the clients write to the file and whether they do it correctly or not.

Issues

msync only works with files that have been directly mapped in to physical memory. This means it can't be used with files that are mapped in to virtual memory.

  • sys_munmap
  • sys_mprotect
  • sys_mlock

This document was automatically generated by OpenAI and needs review. It might not be accurate and might contain errors. The authors of Tracee recommend that the user reads the "events.go" source file to understand the events and their arguments better.