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_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 spe-
	  cial 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.

BUGS

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

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.

FreeBSD 5.4			  May 2, 1997			   FreeBSD 5.4

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