[PATCH 3/5] wrapper: properly handle MAX_IO_SIZE in writev(3p)

From: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date: Jul 16, 2026, 07:52 UTC
Message-ID: <20260716-pks-reintroduce-writev-v1-3-ea9038c884bc@pks.im>
In-Reply-To: <20260716-pks-reintroduce-writev-v1-0-ea9038c884bc@pks.im>

Some systems like NonStop set a comparatively small `MAX_IO_SIZE`, which limits the maximum number of bytes we're allowed to write in a single call. We already handle this limit properly in `xwrite()`, but we have recently introduced wrappers for writev(3p) where we don't. This will cause the syscall to return EINVAL in case somebody passes an iovec entry to writev(3p) that is larger than `MAX_IO_SIZE`.

Introduce a new function `xwritev()` that is similar to `xwrite()` in that it handles such platform-specific nuances:

  - We only pass the leading iovec entries to writev(3p) that fit into
    `MAX_IO_SIZE`, pretending that the underlying syscall performed a
    short write. This mirrors how `xwrite()` chomps overly large
    requests before handing them to write(3p). As a consequence, callers
    will never see writev(3p)'s EINVAL error for requests whose summed
    length would overflow an ssize_t, but observe a short write instead.

  - If already the first iovec entry exceeds the limit we instead punt
    to `xwrite()`, which knows to handle this case for us.

  - We restart the underlying syscall on EINTR and EAGAIN, just like
    `xwrite()` does for write(3p).

Adapt `writev_in_full()` to use this new wrapper. With the retry logic now living in `xwritev()`, the calling loop becomes the exact mirror image of `write_in_full()`, which also retains the responsibility of translating a zero-length write into ENOSPC.

Reported-by: Randall Becker <randall.becker@nexbridge.ca>
Helped-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
---
 wrapper.c | 47 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----
 wrapper.h |  1 +
 2 files changed, 43 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/wrapper.c b/wrapper.c
index be8fa575e6..561f9ee9c9 100644
--- a/wrapper.c
+++ b/wrapper.c
@@ -323,17 +323,54 @@ ssize_t write_in_full(int fd, const void *buf, size_t count)
 	return total;
 }
 
+ssize_t xwritev(int fd, struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt)
+{
+	size_t allowed = MAX_IO_SIZE;
+	int i;
+
+	/*
+	 * Some platforms define a comparatively small `MAX_IO_SIZE` that
+	 * limits how many bytes can be written with a single call to
+	 * write(3p) or writev(3p); exceeding that limit causes the syscall to
+	 * fail with EINVAL. Just like xwrite() chomps overly large requests
+	 * for write(3p), pretend that the underlying writev(3p) performed a
+	 * short write by only passing along the leading iovec entries that
+	 * fit into that limit.
+	 */
+	for (i = 0; i < iovcnt; i++) {
+		if (iov[i].iov_len > allowed) {
+			/*
+			 * If the first buffer is larger than MAX_IO_SIZE,
+			 * let xwrite() deal with it.
+			 */
+			if (!i)
+				return xwrite(fd, iov->iov_base, iov->iov_len);
+			break;
+		}
+		allowed -= iov[i].iov_len;
+	}
+
+	while (1) {
+		ssize_t bytes_written = writev(fd, iov, i);
+		if (bytes_written < 0) {
+			if (errno == EINTR)
+				continue;
+			if (handle_nonblock(fd, POLLOUT, errno))
+				continue;
+		}
+
+		return bytes_written;
+	}
+}
+
 ssize_t writev_in_full(int fd, struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt)
 {
 	ssize_t total_written = 0;
 
 	while (iovcnt) {
-		ssize_t bytes_written = writev(fd, iov, iovcnt);
-		if (bytes_written < 0) {
-			if (errno == EINTR || errno == EAGAIN)
-				continue;
+		ssize_t bytes_written = xwritev(fd, iov, iovcnt);
+		if (bytes_written < 0)
 			return -1;
-		}
 		if (!bytes_written) {
 			errno = ENOSPC;
 			return -1;
diff --git a/wrapper.h b/wrapper.h
index 27519b32d1..a6287d7f4d 100644
--- a/wrapper.h
+++ b/wrapper.h
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ void *xmmap_gently(void *start, size_t length, int prot, int flags, int fd, off_
 int xopen(const char *path, int flags, ...);
 ssize_t xread(int fd, void *buf, size_t len);
 ssize_t xwrite(int fd, const void *buf, size_t len);
+ssize_t xwritev(int fd, struct iovec *iov, int iovcnt);
 ssize_t xpread(int fd, void *buf, size_t len, off_t offset);
 int xdup(int fd);
 FILE *xfopen(const char *path, const char *mode);

-- 
2.55.0.313.g8d093f411d.dirty