| .\" ************************************************************************** |
| .\" * _ _ ____ _ |
| .\" * Project ___| | | | _ \| | |
| .\" * / __| | | | |_) | | |
| .\" * | (__| |_| | _ <| |___ |
| .\" * \___|\___/|_| \_\_____| |
| .\" * |
| .\" * Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al. |
| .\" * |
| .\" * This software is licensed as described in the file COPYING, which |
| .\" * you should have received as part of this distribution. The terms |
| .\" * are also available at https://curl.se/docs/copyright.html. |
| .\" * |
| .\" * You may opt to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute and/or sell |
| .\" * copies of the Software, and permit persons to whom the Software is |
| .\" * furnished to do so, under the terms of the COPYING file. |
| .\" * |
| .\" * This software is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY |
| .\" * KIND, either express or implied. |
| .\" * |
| .\" * SPDX-License-Identifier: curl |
| .\" * |
| .\" ************************************************************************** |
| .\" |
| .TH libcurl-thread 3 "13 Jul 2015" "libcurl" "libcurl thread safety" |
| .SH NAME |
| libcurl-thread \- libcurl thread safety |
| .SH "Multi-threading with libcurl" |
| libcurl is thread safe but has no internal thread synchronization. You may have |
| to provide your own locking should you meet any of the thread safety exceptions |
| below. |
| |
| \fBHandles.\fP You must \fBnever\fP share the same handle in multiple threads. |
| You can pass the handles around among threads, but you must never use a single |
| handle from more than one thread at any given time. |
| |
| \fBShared objects.\fP You can share certain data between multiple handles by |
| using the share interface but you must provide your own locking and set |
| \fIcurl_share_setopt(3)\fP CURLSHOPT_LOCKFUNC and CURLSHOPT_UNLOCKFUNC. |
| .SH TLS |
| If you are accessing HTTPS or FTPS URLs in a multi-threaded manner, you are |
| then of course using the underlying SSL library multi-threaded and those libs |
| might have their own requirements on this issue. You may need to provide one |
| or two functions to allow it to function properly: |
| .IP OpenSSL |
| OpenSSL 1.1.0+ "can be safely used in multi-threaded applications provided that |
| support for the underlying OS threading API is built-in." In that case the |
| engine is used by libcurl in a way that is fully thread-safe. |
| |
| https://www.openssl.org/docs/man1.1.0/man3/CRYPTO_THREAD_run_once.html#DESCRIPTION |
| |
| OpenSSL <= 1.0.2 the user must set callbacks. |
| |
| https://www.openssl.org/docs/man1.0.2/man3/CRYPTO_set_locking_callback.html#DESCRIPTION |
| |
| https://curl.se/libcurl/c/opensslthreadlock.html |
| |
| .IP GnuTLS |
| https://gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Thread-safety.html |
| .IP NSS |
| thread-safe already without anything required. |
| .IP Secure-Transport |
| The engine is used by libcurl in a way that is fully thread-safe. |
| .IP Schannel |
| The engine is used by libcurl in a way that is fully thread-safe. |
| .IP wolfSSL |
| The engine is used by libcurl in a way that is fully thread-safe. |
| .IP BoringSSL |
| The engine is used by libcurl in a way that is fully thread-safe. |
| .SH "Other areas of caution" |
| .IP Signals |
| Signals are used for timing out name resolves (during DNS lookup) - when built |
| without using either the c-ares or threaded resolver backends. When using |
| multiple threads you should set the \fICURLOPT_NOSIGNAL(3)\fP option to 1L for |
| all handles. Everything will or might work fine except that timeouts are not |
| honored during the DNS lookup - which you can work around by building libcurl |
| with c-ares or threaded-resolver support. c-ares is a library that provides |
| asynchronous name resolves. On some platforms, libcurl simply will not |
| function properly multi-threaded unless the \fICURLOPT_NOSIGNAL(3)\fP option |
| is set. |
| |
| When \fICURLOPT_NOSIGNAL(3)\fP is set to 1L, your application needs to deal |
| with the risk of a SIGPIPE (that at least the OpenSSL backend can |
| trigger). Note that setting \fICURLOPT_NOSIGNAL(3)\fP to 0L will not work in a |
| threaded situation as there will be race where libcurl risks restoring the |
| former signal handler while another thread should still ignore it. |
| .IP "Name resolving" |
| \fBgethostby* functions and other system calls.\fP These functions, provided |
| by your operating system, must be thread safe. It is important that libcurl |
| can find and use thread safe versions of these and other system calls, as |
| otherwise it cannot function fully thread safe. Some operating systems are |
| known to have faulty thread implementations. We have previously received |
| problem reports on *BSD (at least in the past, they may be working fine these |
| days). Some operating systems that are known to have solid and working thread |
| support are Linux, Solaris and Windows. |
| .IP "curl_global_* functions" |
| These functions are thread-safe since libcurl 7.84.0 if |
| \fIcurl_version_info(3)\fP has the \fBCURL_VERSION_THREADSAFE\fP feature bit |
| set (most platforms). |
| |
| If these functions are not thread-safe and you are using libcurl with multiple |
| threads it is especially important that before use you call |
| \fIcurl_global_init(3)\fP or \fIcurl_global_init_mem(3)\fP to explicitly |
| initialize the library and its dependents, rather than rely on the "lazy" |
| fail-safe initialization that takes place the first time |
| \fIcurl_easy_init(3)\fP is called. For an in-depth explanation refer to |
| \fIlibcurl(3)\fP section \fBGLOBAL CONSTANTS\fP. |
| .IP "Memory functions" |
| These functions, provided either by your operating system or your own |
| replacements, must be thread safe. You can use \fIcurl_global_init_mem(3)\fP |
| to set your own replacement memory functions. |
| .IP "Non-safe functions" |
| \fICURLOPT_DNS_USE_GLOBAL_CACHE(3)\fP is not thread-safe. |
| |
| \fIcurl_version_info(3)\fP is not thread-safe before libcurl initialization. |