i386_vm86

NAME

i386_vm86 — control vm86-related functions

LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <machine/sysarch.h>
#include <machine/vm86.h>

int
i386_vm86(int function, void *data);

DESCRIPTION

The i386_vm86() system call is used to call various vm86 related functions. The function argument can be one of the following values:

VM86_INIT: This will initialize the kernel's vm86 parameter area for the process, and permit the process to make vm86 calls. The data argument points to the following structure:

The debug argument is used to turn on debugging code. The cpu_type argument controls the type of CPU being emulated, and is currently unimplemented. The int_map argument is a bitmap which determines whether vm86 interrupts should be handled in vm86 mode, or reflected back to the process. If the Nth bit is set, the interrupt will be reflected to the process, otherwise it will be dispatched by the vm86 interrupt table.
VM86_INTCALL: This allows calls to be made to vm86 interrupt handlers by the process. It effectively simulates an INT instruction. data should point to the following structure:

intnum specifies the operand of INT for the simulated call. A value of 0x10, for example, would often be used to call into the VGA BIOS. vmf is used to initialize CPU registers according to the calling convention for the interrupt handler.
VM86_GET_VME: This is used to retrieve the current state of the Pentium(r) processor's VME (Virtual-8086 Mode Extensions) flag, which is bit 0 of CR4. data should be initialized to point to the following:

state will contain the state of the VME flag on return.

vm86 mode is entered by calling sigreturn(2) with the correct machine context for vm86, and with the PSL_VM bit set. Control returns to the process upon delivery of a signal.

RETURN VALUES

The i386_vm86() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The i386_vm86() system call will fail if:

[EINVAL]: The kernel does not have vm86 support, or an invalid function was specified.
[ENOMEM]: There is not enough memory to initialize the kernel data structures.

AUTHORS

This man page was written by Jonathan Lemon, and updated by Bruce M Simpson.

July 27, 1998

Debian