freebsd-nq/share/man/man9/suser.9
John Baldwin cfa028281a - Update to new suser() API.
- Spell privilege properly.
- Grammar nits.
2002-04-02 16:41:11 +00:00

111 lines
3.5 KiB
Groff

.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1996 Julian R Elischer
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed by Kenneth Stailey.
.\"
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.\" by Julian R Elischer
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.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd October 15, 1996
.Dt SUSER 9
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm suser ,
.Nm suser_cred
.Nd check if process has superuser privilege
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/param.h
.In sys/systm.h
.Ft int
.Fn suser "struct thread *td"
.Ft int
.Fn suser_cred "struct ucred *cred" "int flag"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
and
.Nm suser_cred
functions check if the credentials given include superuser powers.
.Pp
The
.Nm
function is the most common, and should be used unless special
circumstances dictate otherwise.
.Pp
The
.Nm suser_cred
function should be used when the credentials to be checked are
not the thread's own, when there is no thread, or when superuser
powers should be extended to imprisoned roots.
.Pp
By default a process does not command superuser powers if it has
been imprisoned by the
.Xr jail 2
system call.
There are cases however where this is appropriate, and this can
be done by setting the
.Dv PRISON_ROOT
bit in the flags argument to the
.Nm suser_cred
function. It is important to review carefully in each case that
this does not weaken the prison. Generally only where the action
is protected by the
.Xr chroot 2
implicit in
.Xr jail 2
call should such powers be granted.
.Pp
The
.Nm
and
.Nm suser_cred
functions note the fact that superuser powers have been used in the
process structure of the process specified.
Because part of their function is to notice
whether superuser powers have been used,
the functions should only be called after other permission
possibilities have been exhausted.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
The
.Nm
and
.Nm suser_cred
functions return 0 if the user has superuser powers and
.Er EPERM
otherwise.
This is the
.Em reverse logic
of some other implementations of
.Nm
in which a TRUE response indicates superuser powers.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chroot 2 ,
.Xr jail 2