How many arguments can be passed in a system call? I checked in the kernel file /asm/unistd.h and saw no system calls that contain more than 4 arguments.
2
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1 Answers
8
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This depends on the architecture you use. For i386, you have maximum 6 arguments beside the system call number.
From syscall(2), the register you pass the system call number over:
arch/ABI instruction syscall # retval Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
arm/OABI swi NR - a1 NR is syscall #
arm/EABI swi 0x0 r7 r0
blackfin excpt 0x0 P0 R0
i386 int $0x80 eax eax
ia64 break 0x100000 r15 r10/r8 bool error/
errno value
parisc ble 0x100(%sr2, %r0) r20 r28
s390 svc 0 r1 r2 See below
s390x svc 0 r1 r2 See below
sparc/32 t 0x10 g1 o0
sparc/64 t 0x6d g1 o0
x86_64 syscall rax rax
The arguments:
arch/ABI arg1 arg2 arg3 arg4 arg5 arg6 arg7
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
arm/OABI a1 a2 a3 a4 v1 v2 v3
arm/EABI r0 r1 r2 r3 r4 r5 r6
blackfin R0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 -
i386 ebx ecx edx esi edi ebp -
ia64 out0 out1 out2 out3 out4 out5 -
parisc r26 r25 r24 r23 r22 r21 -
s390 r2 r3 r4 r5 r6 r7 -
s390x r2 r3 r4 r5 r6 r7 -
sparc/32 o0 o1 o2 o3 o4 o5 -
sparc/64 o0 o1 o2 o3 o4 o5 -
x86_64 rdi rsi rdx r10 r8 r9 -
SYSENTERmachine instruction) is not the ABI calling convention. On x86, syscalls don't pass anything on the stack, only thru registers. - Basile Starynkevitch