NAME¶
setfsuid - set user identity used for file system checks
SYNOPSIS¶
#include <unistd.h> /* glibc uses <sys/fsuid.h> */
int setfsuid(uid_t fsuid);
DESCRIPTION¶
The system call
setfsuid() sets the user ID that the Linux kernel uses to
check for all accesses to the file system. Normally, the value of
fsuid
will shadow the value of the effective user ID. In fact, whenever the
effective user ID is changed,
fsuid will also be changed to the new
value of the effective user ID.
Explicit calls to
setfsuid() and
setfsgid(2) are usually only used
by programs such as the Linux NFS server that need to change what user and
group ID is used for file access without a corresponding change in the real
and effective user and group IDs. A change in the normal user IDs for a
program such as the NFS server is a security hole that can expose it to
unwanted signals. (But see below.)
setfsuid() will only succeed if the caller is the superuser or if
fsuid matches either the real user ID, effective user ID, saved
set-user-ID, or the current value of
fsuid.
RETURN VALUE¶
On success, the previous value of
fsuid is returned. On error, the
current value of
fsuid is returned.
VERSIONS¶
This system call is present in Linux since version 1.2.
setfsuid() is Linux-specific and should not be used in programs intended
to be portable.
NOTES¶
When glibc determines that the argument is not a valid user ID, it will return
-1 and set
errno to
EINVAL without attempting the system call.
Note that at the time this system call was introduced, a process could send a
signal to a process with the same effective user ID. Today signal permission
handling is slightly different.
The original Linux
setfsuid() system call supported only 16-bit user IDs.
Subsequently, Linux 2.4 added
setfsuid32() supporting 32-bit IDs. The
glibc
setfsuid() wrapper function transparently deals with the
variation across kernel versions.
BUGS¶
No error messages of any kind are returned to the caller. At the very least,
EPERM should be returned when the call fails (because the caller lacks
the
CAP_SETUID capability).
SEE ALSO¶
kill(2),
setfsgid(2),
capabilities(7),
credentials(7)
COLOPHON¶
This page is part of release 3.44 of the Linux
man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.