mlock(3C) and munlock(3C)

mlock(3C) causes the pages in the specified address range to be locked in physical memory. References to locked pages (in this or other processes) do not result in page faults that require an I/O operation. This operation ties up physical resources and can disrupt normal system operation, so, use of mlock(3C) is limited to the superuser. The system lets only a configuration dependent limit of pages be locked in memory. The call to mlock fails if this limit is exceeded.

munlock(3C) releases the locks on physical pages. If multiple mlock calls are made on an address range of a single mapping, a single munlock call is release the locks. However, if different mappings to the same pages are mlocked, the pages are not unlocked until the locks on all the mappings are released.

Locks are also released when a mapping is removed, either through being replaced with an mmap operation or removed with munmap.

A lock is transferred between pages on the "copy-on-write" event associated with a MAP_PRIVATE mapping, thus locks on an address range that includes MAP_PRIVATE mappings will be retained transparently along with the copy-on-write redirection (see mmap above for a discussion of this redirection)