.\" Copyright, the authors of the Linux man-pages project
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
.\"
.TH F_GETLEASE 2const 2025-07-20 "Linux man-pages 6.15"
.SH NAME
F_GETLEASE,
F_SETLEASE
\-
leases
.SH LIBRARY
Standard C library
.RI ( libc ,\~ \-lc )
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #define _GNU_SOURCE
.B #include <fcntl.h>
.P
.BI "int fcntl(int " fd ", F_SETLEASE, int " arg );
.BI "int fcntl(int " fd ", F_GETLEASE);"
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.SS Leases
.B F_SETLEASE
and
.B F_GETLEASE
are used to establish a new lease,
and retrieve the current lease, on the open file description
referred to by the file descriptor
.IR fd .
A file lease provides a mechanism whereby the process holding
the lease (the "lease holder") is notified (via delivery of a signal)
when a process (the "lease breaker") tries to
.BR open (2)
or
.BR truncate (2)
the file referred to by that file descriptor.
.TP
.B F_SETLEASE
Set or remove a file lease according to which of the following
values is specified in the integer
.IR arg :
.RS
.TP
.B F_RDLCK
Take out a read lease.
This will cause the calling process to be notified when
the file is opened for writing or is truncated.
.\" The following became true in Linux 2.6.10:
.\" See the man-pages-2.09 Changelog for further info.
A read lease can be placed only on a file descriptor that
is opened read-only.
.TP
.B F_WRLCK
Take out a write lease.
This will cause the caller to be notified when
the file is opened for reading or writing or is truncated.
A write lease may be placed on a file only if there are no
other open file descriptors for the file.
.TP
.B F_UNLCK
Remove our lease from the file.
.RE
.P
Leases are associated with an open file description (see
.BR open (2)).
This means that duplicate file descriptors (created by, for example,
.BR fork (2)
or
.BR dup (2))
refer to the same lease, and this lease may be modified
or released using any of these descriptors.
Furthermore, the lease is released by either an explicit
.B F_UNLCK
operation on any of these duplicate file descriptors, or when all
such file descriptors have been closed.
.P
Leases may be taken out only on regular files.
An unprivileged process may take out a lease only on a file whose
UID (owner) matches the filesystem UID of the process.
A process with the
.B CAP_LEASE
capability may take out leases on arbitrary files.
.TP
.B F_GETLEASE
Indicates what type of lease is associated with the file descriptor
.I fd
by returning either
.BR F_RDLCK ", " F_WRLCK ", or " F_UNLCK ,
indicating, respectively, a read lease , a write lease, or no lease.
.I arg
is ignored.
.P
When a process (the "lease breaker") performs an
.BR open (2)
or
.BR truncate (2)
that conflicts with a lease established via
.BR F_SETLEASE ,
the system call is blocked by the kernel and
the kernel notifies the lease holder by sending it a signal
.RB ( SIGIO
by default).
The lease holder should respond to receipt of this signal by doing
whatever cleanup is required in preparation for the file to be
accessed by another process (e.g., flushing cached buffers) and
then either remove or downgrade its lease.
A lease is removed by performing an
.B F_SETLEASE
operation specifying
.I arg
as
.BR F_UNLCK .
If the lease holder currently holds a write lease on the file,
and the lease breaker is opening the file for reading,
then it is sufficient for the lease holder to downgrade
the lease to a read lease.
This is done by performing an
.B F_SETLEASE
operation specifying
.I arg
as
.BR F_RDLCK .
.P
If the lease holder fails to downgrade or remove the lease within
the number of seconds specified in
.IR /proc/sys/fs/lease\-break\-time ,
then the kernel forcibly removes or downgrades the lease holder's lease.
.P
Once a lease break has been initiated,
.B F_GETLEASE
returns the target lease type (either
.B F_RDLCK
or
.BR F_UNLCK ,
depending on what would be compatible with the lease breaker)
until the lease holder voluntarily downgrades or removes the lease or
the kernel forcibly does so after the lease break timer expires.
.P
Once the lease has been voluntarily or forcibly removed or downgraded,
and assuming the lease breaker has not unblocked its system call,
the kernel permits the lease breaker's system call to proceed.
.P
If the lease breaker's blocked
.BR open (2)
or
.BR truncate (2)
is interrupted by a signal handler,
then the system call fails with the error
.BR EINTR ,
but the other steps still occur as described above.
If the lease breaker is killed by a signal while blocked in
.BR open (2)
or
.BR truncate (2),
then the other steps still occur as described above.
If the lease breaker specifies the
.B O_NONBLOCK
flag when calling
.BR open (2),
then the call immediately fails with the error
.BR EWOULDBLOCK ,
but the other steps still occur as described above.
.P
The default signal used to notify the lease holder is
.BR SIGIO ,
but this can be changed using the
.B F_SETSIG
operation to
.BR fcntl ().
If a
.B F_SETSIG
operation is performed (even one specifying
.BR SIGIO ),
and the signal
handler is established using
.BR SA_SIGINFO ,
then the handler will receive a
.I siginfo_t
structure as its second argument, and the
.I si_fd
field of this argument will hold the file descriptor of the leased file
that has been accessed by another process.
(This is useful if the caller holds leases against multiple files.)
.SH RETURN VALUE
.TP
.B F_GETLEASE
Type of lease held on file descriptor.
.TP
.B F_SETLEASE
Zero.
.P
On error, \-1 is returned, and
.I errno
is set to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
See
.BR fcntl (2).
.SH STANDARDS
Linux.
.SH HISTORY
Linux 2.4.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR fcntl (2)