access (2)

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(The comments found at the beginning of the groff file "man2/access.2freebsd".)

NAME

access eaccess faccessat - check accessibility of a file

LIBRARY

Lb libc

SYNOPSIS

In unistd.h Ft int Fn access const char *path int mode Ft int Fn eaccess const char *path int mode Ft int Fn faccessat int fd const char *path int mode int flag

DESCRIPTION

The Fn access and Fn eaccess system calls check the accessibility of the file named by the Fa path argument for the access permissions indicated by the Fa mode argument. The value of Fa mode is either the bitwise-inclusive OR of the access permissions to be checked ( R_OK for read permission, W_OK for write permission, and X_OK for execute/search permission), or the existence test (F_OK )

For additional information, see the Sx File Access Permission section of intro(2).

The Fn eaccess system call uses the effective user ID and the group access list to authorize the request; the Fn access system call uses the real user ID in place of the effective user ID, the real group ID in place of the effective group ID, and the rest of the group access list.

The Fn faccessat system call is equivalent to Fn access except in the case where Fa path specifies a relative path. In this case the file whose accessibility is to be determined is located relative to the directory associated with the file descriptor Fa fd instead of the current working directory. If Fn faccessat is passed the special value AT_FDCWD in the Fa fd parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior is identical to a call to Fn access . Values for Fa flag are constructed by a bitwise-inclusive OR of flags from the following list, defined in In fcntl.h :

AT_EACCESS

The checks for accessibility are performed using the effective user and group IDs instead of the real user and group ID as required in a call to Fn access .

Even if a process's real or effective user has appropriate privileges and indicates success for X_OK the file may not actually have execute permission bits set. Likewise for R_OK and W_OK

RETURN VALUES

Rv -std

ERRORS

Access to the file is denied if:

Bq Er ENOTDIR

A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG

A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.

Bq Er ENOENT

The named file does not exist.

Bq Er ELOOP

Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.

Bq Er EROFS

Write access is requested for a file on a read-only file system.

Bq Er ETXTBSY

Write access is requested for a pure procedure (shared text) file presently being executed.

Bq Er EACCES

Permission bits of the file mode do not permit the requested access, or search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix.

Bq Er EFAULT

The Fa path argument points outside the process's allocated address space.

Bq Er EIO

An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.

Also, the Fn faccessat system call may fail if:

Bq Er EBADF

The Fa path argument does not specify an absolute path and the Fa fd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor.

Bq Er EINVAL

The value of the Fa flag argument is not valid.

Bq Er ENOTDIR

The Fa path argument is not an absolute path and Fa fd is neither AT_FDCWD nor a file descriptor associated with a directory.

SEE ALSO

chmod(2), intro(2), stat(2)

STANDARDS

The Fn access system call is expected to conform to St -p1003.1-90 . The Fn faccessat system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification.

HISTORY

The Fn access function appeared in AT&T System v7 . The Fn faccessat system call appeared in Fx 8.0 .

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS

The Fn access system call is a potential security hole due to race conditions and should never be used. Set-user-ID and set-group-ID applications should restore the effective user or group ID, and perform actions directly rather than use Fn access to simulate access checks for the real user or group ID. The Fn eaccess system call likewise may be subject to races if used inappropriately.

Fn access remains useful for providing clues to users as to whether operations make sense for particular filesystem objects (e.g. 'delete' menu item only highlighted in a writable folder ... avoiding interpretation of the st_mode bits that the application might not understand -- e.g. in the case of AFS). It also allows a cheaper file existence test than stat(2).