msync(2)                      System Calls Manual                     msync(2)

NAME
       msync - synchronize a file with a memory map

LIBRARY
       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/mman.h>

       int msync(size_t length;
                 void addr[length], size_t length, int flags);

DESCRIPTION
       msync() flushes changes made to the in-core copy of a file that was
       mapped into memory using mmap(2) back to the filesystem.  Without use
       of this call, there is no guarantee that changes are written back
       before munmap(2) is called.  To be more precise, the part of the file
       that corresponds to the memory area starting at addr and having length
       length is updated.

       The flags argument should specify exactly one of MS_ASYNC and MS_SYNC,
       and may additionally include the MS_INVALIDATE bit.  These bits have
       the following meanings:

       MS_ASYNC
              Specifies that an update be scheduled, but the call returns
              immediately.

       MS_SYNC
              Requests an update and waits for it to complete.

       MS_INVALIDATE
              Asks to invalidate other mappings of the same file (so that they
              can be updated with the fresh values just written).

RETURN VALUE
       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
       set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
       EBUSY  MS_INVALIDATE was specified in flags, and a memory lock exists
              for the specified address range.

       EINVAL addr is not a multiple of PAGESIZE; or any bit other than
              MS_ASYNC | MS_INVALIDATE | MS_SYNC is set in flags; or both
              MS_SYNC and MS_ASYNC are set in flags.

       ENOMEM The indicated memory (or part of it) was not mapped.

VERSIONS
       According to POSIX, either MS_SYNC or MS_ASYNC must be specified in
       flags, and indeed failure to include one of these flags will cause
       msync() to fail on some systems.  However, Linux permits a call to
       msync() that specifies neither of these flags, with semantics that are
       (currently) equivalent to specifying MS_ASYNC.  (Since Linux 2.6.19,
       MS_ASYNC is in fact a no-op, since the kernel properly tracks dirty
       pages and flushes them to storage as necessary.)  Notwithstanding the
       Linux behavior, portable, future-proof applications should ensure that
       they specify either MS_SYNC or MS_ASYNC in flags.

STANDARDS
       POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY
       POSIX.1-2001.

       This call was introduced in Linux 1.3.21, and then used EFAULT instead
       of ENOMEM.  In Linux 2.4.19, this was changed to the POSIX value
       ENOMEM.

       On POSIX systems on which msync() is available, both
       _POSIX_MAPPED_FILES and _POSIX_SYNCHRONIZED_IO are defined in
       <unistd.h> to a value greater than 0.  (See also sysconf(3).)

SEE ALSO
       mmap(2)

       B.O. Gallmeister, POSIX.4, O'Reilly, pp. 128-129 and 389-391.

Linux man-pages 6.14              2025-05-06                          msync(2)