SETFSUID(2)                                                  Linux Programmer's Manual                                                 SETFSUID(2)

NAME

       setfsuid - set user identity used for filesystem checks

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/fsuid.h>

       int setfsuid(uid_t fsuid);

DESCRIPTION

       The  system  call  setfsuid() changes the value of the caller's filesystem user ID--the user ID that the Linux kernel uses to check for all
       accesses to the filesystem.  Normally, the value of the filesystem user ID will shadow the value of the effective user ID.  In fact,  when-
       ever the effective user ID is changed, the filesystem user ID will also be changed to the new value of the effective user ID.

       Explicit  calls  to setfsuid() and setfsgid(2) are usually used only 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 succeed only if the caller is the superuser or if fsuid matches either the caller's real user ID, effective user ID, saved
       set-user-ID, or current filesystem user ID.

RETURN VALUE

       On both success and failure, this call returns the previous filesystem user ID of the caller.

VERSIONS

       This system call is present in Linux since version 1.2.

CONFORMING TO

       setfsuid() is Linux-specific and should not be used in programs intended to be portable.

NOTES

       At the time when this system call was introduced, one process could send a signal to another process with the same effective user ID.  This
       meant that if a privileged process changed its effective user ID for the purpose of file permission checking, then it could become vulnera-
       ble to receiving signals sent by another (unprivileged) process with the same user ID.  The filesystem user ID attribute was thus added  to
       allow  a process to change its user ID for the purposes of file permission checking without at the same time becoming vulnerable to receiv-
       ing unwanted signals.  Since Linux 2.0, signal permission handling is different (see kill(2)), with the result that a  process  change  can
       change  its effective user ID without being vulnerable to receiving signals from unwanted processes.  Thus, setfsuid() is nowadays unneeded
       and should be avoided in new applications (likewise for setfsgid(2)).

       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.

   C library/kernel differences
       In glibc 2.15 and earlier, when the wrapper for this system call determines that the argument can't be passed to the kernel without integer
       truncation (because the kernel is old and does not support 32-bit user IDs), they will return -1 and set errno to EINVAL without attempting
       the system call.

BUGS

       No error indications of any kind are returned to the caller, and the fact that both successful and unsuccessful calls return the same value
       makes it impossible to directly determine whether the call succeeded or failed.  Instead, the caller must resort to looking at  the  return
       value  from  a  further call such as setfsuid(-1) (which will always fail), in order to determine if a preceding call to setfsuid() changed
       the filesystem user ID.  At the very least, EPERM should be returned when the call fails (because the caller lacks the CAP_SETUID  capabil-
       ity).

SEE ALSO

       kill(2), setfsgid(2), capabilities(7), credentials(7)

COLOPHON

       This  page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
       latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                                                               2017-09-15                                                         SETFSUID(2)