POSIX explained

Portable Operating System Interface (IEEE 1003)
Status:	Published
Version:	IEEE Std 1003.1-2024
Organization:	Austin Group (IEEE Computer Society, The Open Group, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 15)
Related Standards:	ISO/IEC 9945
Abbreviation:	POSIX
Domain:	Application programming interfaces

The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX; ^[1]) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems.^[1] POSIX defines both the system and user-level application programming interfaces (APIs), along with command line shells and utility interfaces, for software compatibility (portability) with variants of Unix and other operating systems.^{[1] [2]} POSIX is also a trademark of the IEEE.^[1] POSIX is intended to be used by both application and system developers.^[3]

Name

Originally, the name "POSIX" referred to IEEE Std 1003.1-1988, released in 1988. The family of POSIX standards is formally designated as IEEE 1003 and the ISO/IEC standard number is ISO/IEC 9945.

The standards emerged from a project that began in 1984 building on work from related activity in the /usr/group association.^[4] Richard Stallman suggested the name POSIX to the IEEE^[5] instead of the former IEEE-IX.^[6] The committee found it more easily pronounceable and memorable, and thus adopted it.

Overview

Unix was selected as the basis for a standard system interface partly because it was "manufacturer-neutral". However, several major versions of Unix existed—so there was a need to develop a common-denominator system. The POSIX specifications for Unix-like operating systems originally consisted of a single document for the core programming interface, but eventually grew to 19 separate documents (POSIX.1, POSIX.2, etc.).^[7] The standardized user command line and scripting interface were based on the UNIX System V shell.^[8] Many user-level programs, services, and utilities (including awk, echo, ed) were also standardized, along with required program-level services (including basic I/O: file, terminal, and network). POSIX also defines a standard threading library API which is supported by most modern operating systems. In 2008, most parts of POSIX were combined into a single standard (IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, also known as POSIX.1-2008).

, POSIX documentation is divided into two parts:

• POSIX.1, 2013 Edition: POSIX Base Definitions, System Interfaces, and Commands and Utilities (which include POSIX.1, extensions for POSIX.1, Real-time Services, Threads Interface, Real-time Extensions, Security Interface, Network File Access and Network Process-to-Process Communications, User Portability Extensions, Corrections and Extensions, Protection and Control Utilities and Batch System Utilities. This is POSIX 1003.1-2008 with Technical Corrigendum 1.)
• POSIX Conformance Testing: A test suite for POSIX accompanies the standard: VSX-PCTS or the VSX POSIX Conformance Test Suite.^[9]

The development of the POSIX standard takes place in the Austin Group (a joint working group among the IEEE, The Open Group, and the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 15).

Versions

Parts before 1997

Before 1997, POSIX comprised several standards:

• POSIX.1: Core Services (incorporates Standard ANSI C) (IEEE Std 1003.1-1988)
  • Process Creation and Control
  • Signals
    • Floating Point Exceptions
    • Segmentation / Memory Violations
    • Illegal Instructions
    • Bus Errors
    • Timers
  • File and Directory Operations
  • Pipes
  • C Library (Standard C)
  • I/O Port Interface and Control
• POSIX.1b: Real-time extensions (IEEE Std 1003.1b-1993, later appearing as librt—the Realtime Extensions library)^[10]
  • Priority Scheduling
  • Real-Time Signals
  • Clocks and Timers
  • Semaphores
  • Message Passing
  • Shared Memory
  • Asynchronous and Synchronous I/O
  • Memory Locking Interface
• POSIX.1c: Threads extensions (IEEE Std 1003.1c-1995)
  • Thread Creation, Control, and Cleanup
  • Thread Scheduling
  • Thread Synchronization
  • Signal Handling
• POSIX.2: Shell and Utilities (IEEE Std 1003.2-1992)
  • Command Interpreter
  • Utility Programs

Versions after 1997

After 1997, the Austin Group developed the POSIX revisions. The specifications are known under the name Single UNIX Specification, before they become a POSIX standard when formally approved by the ISO.

POSIX.1-2001 (with two TCs)

POSIX.1-2001 (or IEEE Std 1003.1-2001) equates to the Single UNIX Specification, version 3 minus X/Open Curses.^[11]

This standard consisted of:

• the Base Definitions, Issue 6,
• the System Interfaces and Headers, Issue 6,
• the Commands and Utilities, Issue 6.

IEEE Std 1003.1-2004 involved a minor update of POSIX.1-2001. It incorporated two minor updates or errata referred to as Technical Corrigenda (TCs).^[12] Its contents are available on the web.^[13]

POSIX.1-2008 (with two TCs)

Base Specifications, Issue 7 (or IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, 2016 Edition).^[14]

This standard consists of:

• the Base Definitions, Issue 7,
• the System Interfaces and Headers, Issue 7,
• the Commands and Utilities, Issue 7,
• the Rationale volume.

POSIX.1-2017

IEEE Std 1003.1-2017 (Revision of IEEE Std 1003.1-2008) - IEEE Standard for Information Technology—Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX(R)) Base Specifications, Issue 7 is available from either The Open Group or IEEE. It is technically identical to POSIX.1-2008 with Technical Corrigenda 1 and 2 applied. Its contents is available on the web.^[15]

POSIX.1-2024

IEEE Std 1003.1-2024 - IEEE Standard for Information Technology—Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX(R)) Base Specifications, Issue 8 was published on 14 June 2024.^[14] Its contents is available on the web.^[16]

Controversies

512- vs 1024-byte blocks

POSIX mandates 512-byte default block sizes for the df and du utilities, reflecting the typical size of blocks on disks. When Richard Stallman and the GNU team were implementing POSIX for the GNU operating system, they objected to this on the grounds that most people think in terms of 1024 byte (or 1 KiB) blocks. The environment variable was introduced to allow the user to force the standards-compliant behaviour.^[17] The variable name was later changed to .^[18] This variable is now also used for a number of other behaviour quirks.

POSIX-oriented operating systems

Depending upon the degree of compliance with the standards, one can classify operating systems as fully or partly POSIX compatible.

POSIX-certified

Current versions of the following operating systems have been certified to conform to one or more of the various POSIX standards. This means that they passed the automated conformance tests^[19] and their certification has not expired and the operating system has not been discontinued.^{[20] [21]}

• AIX^[22]
• HP-UX^[23]
• INTEGRITY^[24]
• macOS (since 10.5 Leopard)^{[25] [26]}
• OpenServer^[27]
• UnixWare^[28]
• VxWorks^[24]
• z/OS^[22]

Formerly POSIX-certified

Some versions of the following operating systems had been certified to conform to one or more of the various POSIX standards. This means that they passed the automated conformance tests. The certification has expired and some of the operating systems have been discontinued.

• EulerOS (exp. 2022)^[29]
• Inspur K-UX (exp. 2019)^[30]
• IRIX (defunct 2006)^[31]
• OS/390 (defunct 2004)^[32]
• QNX Neutrino^[33]
• Solaris (exp. 2019)^[34]
• Tru64 (defunct 2010)^[35]
• LiteOS (defunct 2020)^[36]

Mostly POSIX-compliant

The following are not certified as POSIX compliant yet comply in large part:

• Android (Available through Android NDK)
• BeOS (and subsequently Haiku)
• Contiki
• Darwin (core of macOS and iOS)
• DragonFly BSD
• FreeBSD^[37]
• illumos
• Linux (most distributions)
• LynxOS
• MINIX (now MINIX3)
• MPE/iX^[38]
• NetBSD
• Nucleus RTOS
• NuttX
• OpenBSD
• OpenSolaris^[39]
• PikeOS RTOS for embedded systems with optional PSE51 and PSE52 partitions; see partition (mainframe)
• PX5 RTOS^[40]
• Redox
• RTEMS – POSIX API support designed to IEEE Std. 1003.13-2003 PSE52
• SerenityOS
• Stratus OpenVOS^[41]
• SkyOS
• Syllable
• ULTRIX^[42]
• VSTa
• VMware ESXi
• Xenix
• Zephyr^[43]

POSIX for Microsoft Windows

• Cygwin provides a largely POSIX-compliant development and run-time environment for Microsoft Windows.
• MinGW, a fork of Cygwin, provides a less POSIX-compliant development environment and supports compatible C-programmed applications via Msvcrt, Microsoft's old Visual C runtime library.
• libunistd, a largely POSIX-compliant development library originally created to build the Linux-based C/C++ source code of CinePaint as is in Microsoft Visual Studio. A lightweight implementation that has POSIX-compatible header files that map POSIX APIs to call their Windows API counterparts.^[44]
• Microsoft POSIX subsystem, an optional Windows subsystem included in Windows NT-based operating systems up to Windows 2000. It supported POSIX.1 as it stood in the 1990 revision, without threads or sockets.
• Interix, originally OpenNT by Softway Systems, Inc., is an upgrade and replacement for Microsoft POSIX subsystem that was purchased by Microsoft in 1999. It was initially marketed as a stand-alone add-on product and then later included as a component in Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) and finally incorporated as a component in Windows Server 2003 R2 and later Windows OS releases under the name "Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications" (SUA); later made deprecated in 2012 (Windows 8)^[45] and dropped in 2013 (2012 R2, 8.1). It enables full POSIX compliance for certain Microsoft Windows products.
• Windows Subsystem for Linux, also known as WSL, is a compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows 10 and 11 using a Linux image such as Ubuntu, Debian, or OpenSUSE among others, acting as an upgrade and replacement for Windows Services for UNIX. It was released in beta in April 2016. The first distribution available was Ubuntu.
• UWIN from AT&T Research implements a POSIX layer on top of the Win32 APIs.
• MKS Toolkit, originally created for MS-DOS, is a software package produced and maintained by MKS Inc. that provides a Unix-like environment for scripting, connectivity and porting Unix and Linux software to both 32- and 64-bit Microsoft Windows systems. A subset of it was included in the first release of Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) in 1998.^{[46] [47]}
• Windows C Runtime Library and Windows Sockets API implement commonly used POSIX API functions for file, time, environment, and socket access,^[48] although the support remains largely incomplete and not fully interoperable with POSIX-compliant implementations.^{[49] [50]}

POSIX for OS/2

Mostly POSIX compliant environments for OS/2:

• emx+gcc – largely POSIX compliant

POSIX for DOS

Partially POSIX compliant environments for DOS include:

• emx+gcc – largely POSIX compliant
• DJGPP – partially POSIX compliant
• DR-DOS multitasking core via – a POSIX threads frontend API extension is available

Compliant via compatibility layer

The following are not officially certified as POSIX compatible, but they conform in large part to the standards by implementing POSIX support via some sort of compatibility feature (usually translation libraries, or a layer atop the kernel). Without these features, they are usually non-compliant.

• AmigaOS (through the ixemul library or vbcc_PosixLib^[51])
• eCos – POSIX is part of the standard distribution, and used by many applications. 'external links' section below has more information.
• IBM i (through the PASE compatibility layer)^[52]
• MorphOS (through the built-in ixemul library)
• OpenVMS (through optional POSIX package)^[53]
• Plan 9 from Bell Labs APE - ANSI/POSIX Environment^[54]
• RIOT (through optional POSIX module)
• Symbian OS with PIPS (PIPS Is POSIX on Symbian)
• VAXELN (partial support of 1003.1 and 1003.4 through the VAXELN POSIX runtime library)^[55]
• Windows NT kernel when using Microsoft SFU 3.5 or SUA
  • Windows 2000 Server or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later. To be POSIX compliant, one must activate optional features of Windows NT and Windows 2000 Server.^[56]
  • Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1 or later
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows Server 2008 and Ultimate and Enterprise versions of Windows Vista
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 and Ultimate and Enterprise versions of Windows 7
  • albeit deprecated, still available for Windows Server 2012 and Enterprise version of Windows 8

See also

• Single UNIX Specification
• POSIX signal
• POSIX Threads
• C POSIX library
• IBM Common User Access – User interface standard
• Portable character set, set of 103 characters which should be supported in any POSIX-compliant character set locale
• Real-time operating system
• Interix – a full-featured POSIX and Unix environment subsystem for Microsoft's Windows NT-based operating systems
• TRON project – alternative OS standards to POSIX

External links

• Web site: The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 8, 2024 edition IEEE Std 1003.1™-2024. The Open Group/IEEE.
• Web site: POSIX Certification home. The Open Group/IEEE.

Notes and References

1. Web site: 13 June 2020. POSIX.1 FAQ. The Open Group. 20 February 2023.
2. Web site: P1003.1 - Standard for Information Technology--Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX(TM)) Base Specifications, Issue 8. IEEE Standards Association.
3. Web site: Introduction. 22 July 2021. The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 edition.
4. Web site: JimIsaak - POSIX Impact. 15 September 2022 . sites.google.com. en-US.
5. Web site: A Backgrounder on IEEE Std 1003.1 . Footnotes.
6. An Update On Standards . Nicholas . Stoughton . .
7. 4 December 2003. PASC Status (including POSIX). IEEE Computer Society. 1 March 2015.
8. Web site: Shell Command Language - The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2013 Edition. 28 April 2020.
9. Web site: Test Suites VSX-PCTS2003 . The Open Group.
10. Web site: librt(3LIB). 4 August 1998. docs.oracle.com. man pages section 3: Library Interfaces and Headers. Oracle Corporation. 18 February 2016. librt, libposix4- POSIX.1b Realtime Extensions library [...] librt is the preferred name for this library. The name libposix4 is maintained for backward compatibility and should be avoided. Functions in this library provide most of the interfaces specified by the POSIX.1b Realtime Extension..
11. Web site: The Single UNIX Specification Version 3 - Overview. unix.org.
12. Web site: IEEE Std 1003.1. 2004. Unix.org. 26 July 2009.
13. Web site: Base Specifications, Issue 6. 2004. 20 July 2024. The Open Group. .
14. Web site: The Austin Common Standards Revision Group. 20 July 2024. The Open Group.
15. Web site: Base Specifications, Issue 7, 2018 Edition. 2018. 20 July 2024. The Open Group.
16. Web site: Base Specifications, Issue 8. 2024. The Open Group. .
17. Stallman. Richard. Democracy Triumphs in Disk Units. 28 August 1991. gnu.announce. [e-mail]. Google Groups .
18. Web site: GNU. GNU Coding Standards.
19. Web site: POSIX Certified by IEEE and The Open Group - Program Guide. Section 2, How to Achieve Certification. 22 January 2022.
20. Web site: POSIX Certified by IEEE and The Open Group - Program Guide. Section 4, Renewals and Certified Product Updates. 22 January 2022.
21. Web site: Certified Products by Company. . n.d.. The Open Group . 22 January 2022.
22. Web site: IBM . The Open Group . 23 January 2022.
23. Web site: Hewlett-Packard . The Open Group . 26 January 2014.
24. Web site: POSIX Certification Register. https://archive.today/20230125024548/http://get.posixcertified.ieee.org/register.html. dead. 25 January 2023. IEEE. 23 January 2022.
25. Web site: The Open Brand - Register of Certified Products . Register of Open Branded Products. The Open Group . 20 May 2015.
26. Web site: Apple Inc. Register of Open Branded Products. The Open Group. 20 May 2015.
27. Web site: SCO OpenServer Release 5 . 3 May 1995. The Open Group. 24 December 2021.
28. Web site: UnixWare ® 7.1.3 and later . 16 May 2003. The Open Group. 24 December 2021.
29. Web site: Huawei Technology Co., Ltd. The Open Group. 26 May 2017.
30. Web site: Inspur Co., Ltd . The Open Group. 26 May 2017.
31. Web site: Silicon Graphics, Inc. . The Open Group. 26 January 2014.
32. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20030802103246/http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/. The Open Brand - Register of Certified Products. 23 July 2003. 2 August 2003. 23 January 2022. Open Group.
33. QNX Achieves New POSIX Certification. 8 April 2008. 16 January 2016 . QNX.
34. Web site: Oracle Corporation. The Open Group. 26 January 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20170712134003/https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/sun.htm. 12 July 2017.
35. Web site: Hewlett-Packard . The Open Group. 26 January 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140709114759/https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/hp.htm. 9 July 2014.
36. Web site: Huawei LiteOS / LiteOS . Gitee . Huawei . 23 May 2024.
37. Web site: FreeBSD POSIX 2001 Utility Compliance. Jens. Schweikhardt. FreeBSD.
38. Computerworld. HP 3000 sales catch market by surprise. Mark Halper. 28. 4. IDG Enterprise. 7 November 1994.
39. Book: OpenSolaris Bible. John Wiley & Sons. 21 March 2011. 9781118080313. en. Nicholas A.. Solter. Jerry. Jelinek. David. Miner.
40. Web site: RTOS with standard POSIX pthreads API: a complement to embedded Linux. Embedded.com. Bill. Lamie. Rafael. Taubinger. 15 June 2023. 13 September 2023.
41. Web site: OpenVOS POSIX.1: Conformance Guide. Status Technologies. 26 November 2021.
42. ULTRIX POSIX Conformance Document. June 1990. Digital. 13 December 2021.
43. Web site: POSIX Support. Zephyr documentation. 7 March 2023.
44. Web site: libunistd. Rowe. Robin. 8 September 2022. Github. 18 February 2023. If you want to build single codebase C++ code to run on Windows, Linux and MacOS, you need this for Windows.
45. Web site: Features Removed or Deprecated in Windows Server 2012. 31 August 2016. Microsoft Docs.
46. Web site: Windows NT Services for UNIX Add-On Pack. Microsoft. https://web.archive.org/web/19990508011234/http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/exec/overview/sfu.asp. 8 May 1999.
47. MKS Solves Enterprise Interoperability Challenges. https://web.archive.org/web/19990428003638/http://mks.com/press/981109a.htm. 28 April 1999.
48. Web site: Deprecated CRT Functions . 15 October 2009 . 23 July 2022 . Microsoft Docs.
49. Web site: Porting Socket Applications to Winsock . 7 January 2021 . 23 July 2022 . Microsoft Docs.
50. Web site: Winsock Programmer's FAQ Articles: BSD Sockets Compatibility. 31 August 2015 . 8 October 2015 . Warren Young.
51. Web site: Aminet - dev/C/Vbcc_PosixLib.lha.
52. Web site: Programming IBM PASE for i. ibm.com. IBM. 2013. 25 November 2021.
53. Web site: FIPS 151-2 Conformance Validated Products List. Perennial Test Lab. 14 August 2022.
54. Web site: APE — ANSI/POSIX Environment. Bell Labs. Plan 9 documents. https://web.archive.org/web/20170601064807/http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/ape.html. 1 June 2017.
55. Realtime Products Technical Summary, Fifth Edition. Digital Equipment Corporation. December 1992. 8 December 2021.
56. Web site: Chapter 29 - POSIX Compatibility. MS Windows NT Workstation Resource Kit. Microsoft. https://web.archive.org/web/20080115185233/http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/ntwrkstn/reskit/poscomp.mspx. 15 January 2008.