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MODIFY_LDT(2)                 Linux Programmer's Manual                 MODIFY_LDT(2)

NAME         top

       modify_ldt - get or set ldt

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <sys/types.h>

       int modify_ldt(int func, void *ptr, unsigned long bytecount);

DESCRIPTION         top

       modify_ldt() reads or writes the local descriptor table (ldt) for a process.
       The ldt is a per-process memory management table used by the i386 processor.
       For more information on this table, see an Intel 386 processor handbook.

       When func is 0, modify_ldt() reads the ldt into the memory pointed to by ptr.
       The number of bytes read is the smaller of bytecount and the actual size of
       the ldt.

       When func is 1, modify_ldt() modifies one ldt entry.  ptr points to a
       user_desc structure and bytecount must equal the size of this structure.

       The user_desc structure is defined in <asm/ldt.h> as:

           struct user_desc {
               unsigned int  entry_number;
               unsigned long base_addr;
               unsigned int  limit;
               unsigned int  seg_32bit:1;
               unsigned int  contents:2;
               unsigned int  read_exec_only:1;
               unsigned int  limit_in_pages:1;
               unsigned int  seg_not_present:1;
               unsigned int  useable:1;
           };

       In Linux 2.4 and earlier, this structure was named modify_ldt_ldt_s.

RETURN VALUE         top

       On success, modify_ldt() returns either the actual number of bytes read (for
       reading) or 0 (for writing).  On failure, modify_ldt() returns -1 and sets
       errno to indicate the error.

ERRORS         top

       EFAULT ptr points outside the address space.

       EINVAL ptr is 0, or func is 1 and bytecount is not equal to the size of the
              structure modify_ldt_ldt_s, or func is 1 and the new ldt entry has
              invalid values.

       ENOSYS func is neither 0 nor 1.

CONFORMING TO         top

       This call is Linux-specific and should not be used in programs intended to be
       portable.

NOTES         top

       Glibc does not provide a wrapper for this system call; call it using
       syscall(2).

SEE ALSO         top

       vm86(2)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 3.32 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
       at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                                 2007-06-01                        MODIFY_LDT(2)

HTML rendering created 2010-12-03 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface

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