KENV(2) BSD System Calls Manual KENV(2)NAMEkenv — kernel environment
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <kenv.h>
int
kenv(int action, const char *name, char *value, int len);
DESCRIPTION
The kenv() system call manipulates kernel environment variables. It sup‐
ports the well known userland actions of getting, setting and unsetting
environment variables, as well as the ability to dump all of the entries
in the kernel environment.
The action argument can be one of the following:
KENV_GET Returns the value associated with the named kernel environ‐
ment variable. If the variable is not found, -1 is returned
and the global variable errno is set to ENOENT. Only the
number of bytes available in value are copied out.
KENV_SET Sets or adds a new kernel environment variable. This option
is only available to the superuser.
KENV_UNSET Unsets the kernel environment variable name. If the variable
does not exist, -1 is returned and the global variable errno
is set to EINVAL. This option is only available to the supe‐
ruser.
KENV_DUMP Dumps as much of the kernel environment as will fit in value.
If value is NULL, kenv() will return the number of bytes
required to copy out the entire environment.
The name argument is the name of the environment variable to be affected.
In the case of KENV_DUMP it is ignored.
The value argument contains either the value to set the environment vari‐
able name to in the case of KENV_SET, or it points to the location where
kenv() should copy return data to in the case of KENV_DUMP and KENV_GET.
If value is NULL in the case of KENV_DUMP, kenv() will return the number
of bytes required to copy out the entire environment.
The len argument indicates how many bytes of storage value points to.
RETURN VALUES
The kenv() system call returns 0 if successful in the case of KENV_SET
and KENV_UNSET, and the number of bytes copied into value in the case of
KENV_DUMP and KENV_GET. If an error occurs, a value of -1 is returned
and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
The kenv() system call will fail if:
[EINVAL] The action argument is not a valid option, or the
length of the value is less than 1 for a KENV_SET.
[ENOENT] no value could be found for name for a KENV_SET or
KENV_UNSET.
[EPERM] a user other than the superuser attempted to set or
unset a kernel environment variable.
[EFAULT] bad address was encountered while attempting to copy
in user arguments, or copy out value(s).
[ENAMETOOLONG] the name of a variable supplied by the user is longer
than KENV_MNAMELEN or the value of a variable is
longer than KENV_MVALLEN.
SEE ALSOkenv(1)AUTHORS
This manual page was written by Chad David ⟨davidc@FreeBSD.org⟩.
The kenv() system call was written by Maxime Henrion ⟨mux@FreeBSD.org⟩.
BSD April 17, 2002 BSD
