How to get a “bus error”?

Question

I am trying very hard to get a bus error.

One way is misaligned access and I have tried the examples given here and here, but no error for me - the programs execute just fine.

Is there some situation which is sure to produce a bus error?

Answer 1

on linux with an Intel CPU try this:

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
# if defined i386
    /* enable alignment check (AC) */
    asm("pushf; "
    "orl $(1<<18), (%esp); "
    "popf;");
# endif

    char d[] = "12345678";  /* yep! - causes SIGBUS even on Linux-i386 */
    return 0;
}

the trick here is to set the "alignment check" bit in one of the CPUs "special" registers.

see also: here

Answer 2

Also keep in mind that some operating systems report "bus error" for errors other than misaligned access. You didn't mention in your question what it was you were actually trying to acheive. Maybe try thus:

int *x = 0;
*x=1;

---

the Wikipedia page you linked to mentions that access to non-existant memory can also result is a bus error. You might have better luck with loading a known-invalid address into a pointer and dereferwncing that.

Answer 3

Bus errors occur if you try to access memory that is not addressable by your computer. For example, your computer's memory has an address range 0x00 to 0xFF but you try to access a memory element at 0x0100 or greater.

In reality, your computer will have a much greater range than 0x00 to 0xFF.

To answer your original post:

Tell me some situation which is sure to produce a bus error.

In your code, index into memory way outside the scope of the max memory limit. I dunno ... use some kind of giant hex value 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF indexed into a char* ...

Answer 4

As others have mentioned this is very platform specific. On the ARM system I'm working with (which doesn't have virtual memory) there are large portions of the address space which have no memory or peripheral assigned. If I read or write one of those addresses, I get a bus error.

You can also get a bus error if there's actually a hardware problem on the bus.

If you're running on a platform with virtual memory, you might not be able to intentionally generate a bus error with your program unless it's a device driver or other kernel mode software. An invalid memory access would likely be trapped as an access violation or similar by the memory manager (and it never even has a chance to hit the bus).

Answer 5

I am sure that you must be using x86 machines. X86 cpu does not generate bus error unless its AC flag in EFALAGS register is set.

Try this code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(void)
{
    char *p;

    __asm__("pushf\n"
            "orl $0x40000, (%rsp)\n"
            "popf");

    /* 
     * malloc() always provides aligned memory.
     * Do not use stack variable like a[9], depending on the compiler you use,
     * a may not be aligned properly.
     */
    p = malloc(sizeof(int) + 1);
    memset(p, 0, sizeof(int) + 1);

    /* making p unaligned */
    p++;

    printf("%d\n", *(int *)p);

    return 0;
}

More about this can be found at http://orchistro.tistory.com/206

Answer 6

This should reliably result in a SIGBUS on a POSIX-compliant system.

#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
int main() {
    FILE *f = tmpfile();
    int *m = mmap(0, 4, PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE, fileno(f), 0);
    *m = 0;
    return 0;
}

From the Single Unix Specification, mmap:

References within the address range starting at pa and continuing for len bytes to whole pages following the end of an object shall result in delivery of a SIGBUS signal.