SIGNAL(7) Linux Programmer's Manual SIGNAL(7)NAMEsignal - list of available signals
DESCRIPTION
Linux supports both POSIX reliable signals (hereinafter "standard sig‐
nals") and POSIX real-time signals.
Signal Dispositions
Each signal has a current disposition, which determines how the process
behaves when it is delivered the signal.
The entries in the "Action" column of the tables below specify the
default disposition for each signal, as follows:
Term Default action is to terminate the process.
Ign Default action is to ignore the signal.
Core Default action is to terminate the process and dump core (see
core(5)).
Stop Default action is to stop the process.
Cont Default action is to continue the process if it is currently
stopped.
A process can change the disposition of a signal using sigaction(2) or
(less portably) signal(2). Using these system calls, a process can
elect one of the following behaviours to occur on delivery of the sig‐
nal: perform the default action; ignore the signal; or catch the signal
with a signal handler, a programmer-defined function that is automati‐
cally invoked when the signal is delivered.
The signal disposition is a per-process attribute: in a multithreaded
application, the disposition of a particular signal is the same for all
threads.
Signal Mask and Pending Signals
A signal may be blocked, which means that it will not be delivered
until it is later unblocked. Between the time when it is generated and
when it is delivered a signal is said to be pending.
Each thread in a process has an independent signal mask, which indi‐
cates the set of signals that the thread is currently blocking. A
thread can manipulate its signal mask using pthread_sigmask(3). In a
traditional single-threaded application, sigprocmask(2) can be used to
manipulate the signal mask.
A signal may be generated (and thus pending) for a process as a whole
(e.g., when sent using kill(2)) or for a specific thread (e.g., certain
signals, such as SIGSEGV and SIGFPE, generated as a consequence of exe‐
cuting a specific machine-language instruction are thread directed, as
are signals targeted at a specific thread using pthread_kill(2)). A
process-directed signal may be delivered to any one of the threads that
does not currently have the signal blocked. If more than one of the
threads has the signal unblocked, then the kernel chooses an arbitrary
thread to which to deliver the signal.
A thread can obtain the set of signals that it currently has pending
using sigpending(2). This set will consist of the union of the set of
pending process-directed signals and the set of signals pending for the
calling thread.
Standard Signals
Linux supports the standard signals listed below. Several signal num‐
bers are architecture dependent, as indicated in the "Value" column.
(Where three values are given, the first one is usually valid for alpha
and sparc, the middle one for i386, ppc and sh, and the last one for
mips. A - denotes that a signal is absent on the corresponding archi‐
tecture.)
First the signals described in the original POSIX.1-1990 standard.
Signal Value Action Comment
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
SIGHUP 1 Term Hangup detected on controlling terminal
or death of controlling process
SIGINT 2 Term Interrupt from keyboard
SIGQUIT 3 Core Quit from keyboard
SIGILL 4 Core Illegal Instruction
SIGABRT 6 Core Abort signal from abort(3)
SIGFPE 8 Core Floating point exception
SIGKILL 9 Term Kill signal
SIGSEGV 11 Core Invalid memory reference
SIGPIPE 13 Term Broken pipe: write to pipe with no readers
SIGALRM 14 Term Timer signal from alarm(2)
SIGTERM 15 Term Termination signal
SIGUSR1 30,10,16 Term User-defined signal 1
SIGUSR2 31,12,17 Term User-defined signal 2
SIGCHLD 20,17,18 Ign Child stopped or terminated
SIGCONT 19,18,25 Cont Continue if stopped
SIGSTOP 17,19,23 Stop Stop process
SIGTSTP 18,20,24 Stop Stop typed at tty
SIGTTIN 21,21,26 Stop tty input for background process
SIGTTOU 22,22,27 Stop tty output for background process
The signals SIGKILL and SIGSTOP cannot be caught, blocked, or ignored.
Next the signals not in the POSIX.1-1990 standard but described in
SUSv2 and POSIX.1-2001.
Signal Value Action Comment
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
SIGBUS 10,7,10 Core Bus error (bad memory access)
SIGPOLL Term Pollable event (Sys V). Synonym of SIGIO
SIGPROF 27,27,29 Term Profiling timer expired
SIGSYS 12,-,12 Core Bad argument to routine (SVr4)
SIGTRAP 5 Core Trace/breakpoint trap
SIGURG 16,23,21 Ign Urgent condition on socket (4.2BSD)
SIGVTALRM 26,26,28 Term Virtual alarm clock (4.2BSD)
SIGXCPU 24,24,30 Core CPU time limit exceeded (4.2BSD)
SIGXFSZ 25,25,31 Core File size limit exceeded (4.2BSD)
Up to and including Linux 2.2, the default behaviour for SIGSYS, SIGX‐
CPU, SIGXFSZ, and (on architectures other than SPARC and MIPS) SIGBUS
was to terminate the process (without a core dump). (On some other
Unices the default action for SIGXCPU and SIGXFSZ is to terminate the
process without a core dump.) Linux 2.4 conforms to the POSIX.1-2001
requirements for these signals, terminating the process with a core
dump.
Next various other signals.
Signal Value Action Comment
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
SIGIOT 6 Core IOT trap. A synonym for SIGABRT
SIGEMT 7,-,7 Term
SIGSTKFLT -,16,- Term Stack fault on coprocessor (unused)
SIGIO 23,29,22 Term I/O now possible (4.2BSD)
SIGCLD -,-,18 Ign A synonym for SIGCHLD
SIGPWR 29,30,19 Term Power failure (System V)
SIGINFO 29,-,- A synonym for SIGPWR
SIGLOST -,-,- Term File lock lost
SIGWINCH 28,28,20 Ign Window resize signal (4.3BSD, Sun)
SIGUNUSED -,31,- Term Unused signal (will be SIGSYS)
(Signal 29 is SIGINFO / SIGPWR on an alpha but SIGLOST on a sparc.)
SIGEMT is not specified in POSIX.1-2001, but nevertheless appears on
most other Unices, where its default action is typically to terminate
the process with a core dump.
SIGPWR (which is not specified in POSIX.1-2001) is typically ignored by
default on those other Unices where it appears.
SIGIO (which is not specified in POSIX.1-2001) is ignored by default on
several other Unices.
Real-time Signals
Linux supports real-time signals as originally defined in the POSIX.1b
real-time extensions (and now included in POSIX.1-2001). Linux sup‐
ports 32 real-time signals, numbered from 32 (SIGRTMIN) to 63 (SIGRT‐
MAX). (Programs should always refer to real-time signals using nota‐
tion SIGRTMIN+n, since the range of real-time signal numbers varies
across Unices.)
Unlike standard signals, real-time signals have no predefined meanings:
the entire set of real-time signals can be used for application-defined
purposes. (Note, however, that the LinuxThreads implementation uses
the first three real-time signals.)
The default action for an unhandled real-time signal is to terminate
the receiving process.
Real-time signals are distinguished by the following:
1. Multiple instances of real-time signals can be queued. By con‐
trast, if multiple instances of a standard signal are delivered
while that signal is currently blocked, then only one instance is
queued.
2. If the signal is sent using sigqueue(2), an accompanying value
(either an integer or a pointer) can be sent with the signal. If
the receiving process establishes a handler for this signal using
the SA_SIGINFO flag to sigaction(2) then it can obtain this data
via the si_value field of the siginfo_t structure passed as the
second argument to the handler. Furthermore, the si_pid and si_uid
fields of this structure can be used to obtain the PID and real
user ID of the process sending the signal.
3. Real-time signals are delivered in a guaranteed order. Multiple
real-time signals of the same type are delivered in the order they
were sent. If different real-time signals are sent to a process,
they are delivered starting with the lowest-numbered signal.
(I.e., low-numbered signals have highest priority.)
If both standard and real-time signals are pending for a process, POSIX
leaves it unspecified which is delivered first. Linux, like many other
implementations, gives priority to standard signals in this case.
According to POSIX, an implementation should permit at least
_POSIX_SIGQUEUE_MAX (32) real-time signals to be queued to a process.
However, Linux does things differently. In kernels up to and including
2.6.7, Linux imposes a system-wide limit on the number of queued real-
time signals for all processes. This limit can be viewed and (with
privilege) changed via the /proc/sys/kernel/rtsig-max file. A related
file, /proc/sys/kernel/rtsig-nr, can be used to find out how many real-
time signals are currently queued. In Linux 2.6.8, these /proc inter‐
faces were replaced by the RLIMIT_SIGPENDING resource limit, which
specifies a per-user limit for queued signals; see setrlimit(2) for
further details.
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1
BUGS
SIGIO and SIGLOST have the same value. The latter is commented out in
the kernel source, but the build process of some software still thinks
that signal 29 is SIGLOST.
SEE ALSOkill(1), kill(2), killpg(2), setitimer(2), setrlimit(2), sigaction(2),
signal(2), sigpending(2), sigprocmask(2), sigqueue(2), sigsuspend(2),
sigwaitinfo(2), raise(3), sigvec(3), sigset(3), strsignal(3), core(5),
proc(5), pthreads(7)Linux 2.4.18 2002-06-13 SIGNAL(7)
