1.\" Copyright (c) 1992, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" This code is derived from software developed by the Computer Systems 5.\" Engineering group at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory under DARPA contract 6.\" BG 91-66 and contributed to Berkeley. 7.\" 8.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 9.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 10.\" are met: 11.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 13.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 14.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 15.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 16.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 17.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 18.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 19.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 20.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 21.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 22.\" without specific prior written permission. 23.\" 24.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 25.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 26.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 27.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 28.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 29.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 30.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 31.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 32.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 33.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 34.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 35.\" 36.\" @(#)kvm.3 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 37.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libkvm/kvm.3,v 1.7.2.2 2001/08/17 15:43:04 ru Exp $ 38.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libkvm/kvm.3,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:26:49 dillon Exp $ 39.\" 40.Dd June 4, 1993 41.Dt KVM 3 42.Os 43.Sh NAME 44.Nm kvm 45.Nd kernel memory interface 46.Sh LIBRARY 47.Lb libkvm 48.Sh DESCRIPTION 49The 50.Xr kvm 3 51library provides a uniform interface for accessing kernel virtual memory 52images, including live systems and crash dumps. 53Access to live systems is via 54.Pa /dev/mem 55while crash dumps can be examined via the core file generated by 56.Xr savecore 8 . 57The interface behaves identically in both cases. 58Memory can be read and written, kernel symbol addresses can be 59looked up efficiently, and information about user processes can 60be gathered. 61.Pp 62.Fn kvm_open 63is first called to obtain a descriptor for all subsequent calls. 64.Sh COMPATIBILITY 65The kvm interface was first introduced in SunOS. A considerable 66number of programs have been developed that use this interface, 67making backward compatibility highly desirable. 68In most respects, the Sun kvm interface is consistent and clean. 69Accordingly, the generic portion of the interface (i.e., 70.Fn kvm_open , 71.Fn kvm_close , 72.Fn kvm_read , 73.Fn kvm_write , 74and 75.Fn kvm_nlist ) 76has been incorporated into the 77.Bx 78interface. Indeed, many kvm 79applications (i.e., debuggers and statistical monitors) use only 80this subset of the interface. 81.Pp 82The process interface was not kept. This is not a portability 83issue since any code that manipulates processes is inherently 84machine dependent. 85.Pp 86Finally, the Sun kvm error reporting semantics are poorly defined. 87The library can be configured either to print errors to stderr automatically, 88or to print no error messages at all. 89In the latter case, the nature of the error cannot be determined. 90To overcome this, the 91.Bx 92interface includes a 93routine, 94.Xr kvm_geterr 3 , 95to return (not print out) the error message 96corresponding to the most recent error condition on the 97given descriptor. 98.Sh SEE ALSO 99.Xr kvm_close 3 , 100.Xr kvm_getargv 3 , 101.Xr kvm_getenvv 3 , 102.Xr kvm_geterr 3 , 103.Xr kvm_getfiles 3 , 104.Xr kvm_getloadavg 3 , 105.Xr kvm_getprocs 3 , 106.Xr kvm_getswapinfo 3 , 107.Xr kvm_nlist 3 , 108.Xr kvm_open 3 , 109.Xr kvm_openfiles 3 , 110.Xr kvm_read 3 , 111.Xr kvm_write 3 112