Named semaphores

A named semaphore is identified by a name of the form /somename. Two processes can operate on the same named semaphore by passing the same name to sem_open(3).

The sem_open(3) function creates a new named semaphore or opens an existing named semaphore. After the semaphore has been opened, it can be operated on using sem_post(3) and sem_wait(3). When a process has finished using the semaphore, it can use sem_close(3) to close the semaphore. When all processes have finished using the semaphore, it can be removed from the system using sem_unlink(3).

Unnamed semaphores (memory-based semaphores)

An unnamed semaphore does not have a name. Instead the semaphore is placed in a region of memory that is shared between multiple threads (a thread-shared semaphore) or processes (a process-shared semaphore). A thread-shared semaphore is placed in an area of memory shared between by the threads of a process, for example, a global variable. A process-shared semaphore must be placed in a shared memory region (e.g., a System V shared memory segment created using semget(2), or a POSIX shared memory object built created using shm_open(3)).

Before being used, an unnamed semaphore must be initialised using sem_init(3). It can then be operated on using sem_post(3) and sem_wait(3). When the semaphore is no longer required, and before the memory in which it is located is deallocated, the semaphore should be destroyed using sem_destroy(3).

Versions

Prior to kernel 2.6, Linux only supported unnamed, thread-shared semaphores. On a system with Linux 2.6 and a glibc that provides the NPTL threading implementation, a complete implementation of POSIX semaphores is provided.

Persistence

POSIX named semaphores have kernel persistence: if not removed by sem_unlink(3), a semaphore will exist until the system is shut down.

Linking

Programs using the POSIX semaphores API must be compiled with cc −lrt to link against the real-time library, librt.

Accessing named semaphores via the file system

On Linux, named semaphores are created in a virtual file system, normally mounted under /dev/shm, with names of the form sem.name.