freebsd man page for _secure_path

_SECURE_PATH(3) 					   BSD Library Functions Manual 					   _SECURE_PATH(3)

NAME
     _secure_path -- determine if a file appears to be secure

LIBRARY
     System Utilities Library (libutil, -lutil)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/types.h>
     #include <libutil.h>

     int
     _secure_path(const char *path, uid_t uid, gid_t gid);

DESCRIPTION
     This function does some basic security checking on a given path.  It is intended to be used by processes running with root privileges in
     order to decide whether or not to trust the contents of a given file.  It uses a method often used to detect system compromise.

     A file is considered 'secure' if it meets the following conditions:

     1.   The file exists, and is a regular file (not a symlink, device special or named pipe, etc.),

     2.   Is not world writable.

     3.   Is owned by the given uid or uid 0, if uid is not -1,

     4.   Is not group writable or it has group ownership by the given gid, if gid is not -1.

RETURN VALUES
     This function returns zero if the file exists and may be considered secure, -2 if the file does not exist, and -1 otherwise to indicate a
     security failure.	The syslog(3) function is used to log any failure of this function, including the reason, at LOG_ERR priority.

SEE ALSO
     lstat(2), syslog(3)

HISTORY
     Code from which this function was derived was contributed to the FreeBSD project by Berkeley Software Design, Inc.

BUGS
     The checks carried out are rudimentary and no attempt is made to eliminate race conditions between use of this function and access to the
     file referenced.

BSD
								    May 2, 1997 							       BSD