freebsd-nq/share/man/man4/man4.i386/io.4
Jordan K. Hubbard 1130b656e5 Make the long-awaited change from $Id$ to $FreeBSD$
This will make a number of things easier in the future, as well as (finally!)
avoiding the Id-smashing problem which has plagued developers for so long.

Boy, I'm glad we're not using sup anymore.  This update would have been
insane otherwise.
1997-01-14 07:20:47 +00:00

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.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1996 Joerg Wunsch
.\"
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.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd Jan 1, 1996
.Dt IO 4 i386
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm io
.Nd I/O privilege file
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The special file
.Nm /dev/io
is a controlled security hole that allows a process to gain I/O
privileges
.Pq which are normally reserved for kernel-internal code .
Any process that holds a file descriptor on
.Nm /dev/io
open will get its
.Em IOPL
bits in the flag register set, thus allowing it to perform direct
I/O operations. This can be useful in order to write userland
programs that handle some hardware directly.
.Pp
The entire access control is handled by the file access permissions
of
.Nm /dev/io ,
so care should be taken in granting rights for this device. Note
that even read/only access will grant the full I/O privileges.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width Pa -compact
.It Pa /dev/io
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr mem 4
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm io
file appeared in
FreeBSD 1.0.