Is epoll thread-safe?
It is thread-safe, but there isn't much documentation that explicitly states that. See here
BTW, you can also have multiple threads waiting on a single epoll_fd
, but in that case it can get a bit tricky. (I.e. you might want to use edge-triggered EPOLLET
or oneshot mode EPOLLONESHOT
. See here.)
Note: The existing accepted answer is correct, but it mentions "there isn't much documentation that explicitly states that", while epoll documentation does state it.
The manual page for epoll_wait
explicitly allows adding a file descriptor to an epoll set while it is being waited for in another thread:
Section "Notes":
While one thread is blocked in a call to epoll_wait(), it is possible for another thread to add a file descriptor to the waited-upon epoll instance. If the new file descriptor becomes ready, it will cause the epoll_wait() call to unblock.