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Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)intro.2 8.5 (Berkeley) 2/27/95 29.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/sys/intro.2,v 1.48 2007/01/09 00:28:14 imp Exp $ 30.\" 31.Dd May 16, 2018 32.Dt INTRO 2 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm intro 36.Nd introduction to system calls and error numbers 37.Sh LIBRARY 38.Lb libc 39.Sh SYNOPSIS 40.In errno.h 41.Sh DESCRIPTION 42This section provides an overview of the system calls, 43their error returns, and other common definitions and concepts. 44.\".Pp 45.\".Sy System call restart 46.\".Pp 47.\"(more later...) 48.Sh RETURN VALUES 49Nearly all of the system calls provide an error number referenced via 50the external identifier 51.Va errno . 52This identifier is defined in 53.In errno.h 54as 55.Pp 56.Dl extern __thread int errno; 57.Dl static __inline int * __error(void); 58.Dl #define errno (* __error()) 59.Pp 60This means there exists a thread-local 61.Va errno 62variable, though it is shadowed by the inline 63.Fn __error 64function to allow compilation of source code which 65erroneously itself declares 66.Va errno 67as 68.Vt extern int errno; 69which collides with the thread-local declaration. 70The 71.Fn __error 72function returns a pointer the thread specific 73.Va errno 74variable. 75As it is defined 76.Vt inline , 77it will compile to a no-op, effectively producing 78the same code as if the define wouldn't exist. 79.Pp 80When a system call detects an error, 81it returns an integer value 82indicating failure (usually -1) 83and sets the variable 84.Va errno 85accordingly. 86(This allows interpretation of the failure on receiving 87a -1 and to take action accordingly.) 88Successful calls never set 89.Va errno ; 90once set, it remains until another error occurs. 91It should only be examined after an error. 92Note that a number of system calls overload the meanings of these 93error numbers, and that the meanings must be interpreted according 94to the type and circumstances of the call. 95.Pp 96The following is a complete list of the errors and their 97names as given in 98.In sys/errno.h . 99.Bl -hang -width Ds 100.It Er 0 Em "Undefined error: 0" . 101Not used. 102.It Er 1 EPERM Em "Operation not permitted" . 103An attempt was made to perform an operation limited to processes 104with appropriate privileges or to the owner of a file or other 105resources. 106.It Er 2 ENOENT Em "No such file or directory" . 107A component of a specified pathname did not exist, or the 108pathname was an empty string. 109.It Er 3 ESRCH Em "No such process" . 110No process could be found corresponding to that specified by the given 111process ID. 112.It Er 4 EINTR Em "Interrupted system call" . 113An asynchronous signal (such as 114.Dv SIGINT 115or 116.Dv SIGQUIT ) 117was caught by the process during the execution of an interruptible 118function. 119If the signal handler performs a normal return, the 120interrupted system call will seem to have returned the error condition. 121.It Er 5 EIO Em "Input/output error" . 122Some physical input or output error occurred. 123This error will not be reported until a subsequent operation on the same file 124descriptor and may be lost (over written) by any subsequent errors. 125.It Er 6 ENXIO Em "Device not configured" . 126Input or output on a special file referred to a device that did not 127exist, or 128made a request beyond the limits of the device. 129This error may also occur when, for example, 130a tape drive is not online or no disk pack is 131loaded on a drive. 132.It Er 7 E2BIG Em "Argument list too long" . 133The number of bytes used for the argument and environment 134list of the new process exceeded the current limit 135.Dv ( NCARGS 136in 137.In sys/param.h ) . 138.It Er 8 ENOEXEC Em "Exec format error" . 139A request was made to execute a file 140that, although it has the appropriate permissions, 141was not in the format required for an 142executable file. 143.It Er 9 EBADF Em "Bad file descriptor" . 144A file descriptor argument was out of range, referred to no open file, 145or a read (write) request was made to a file that was only open for 146writing (reading). 147.It Er 10 ECHILD Em "\&No child processes" . 148A 149.Xr wait 2 150or 151.Xr waitpid 2 152function was executed by a process that had no existing or unwaited-for 153child processes. 154.It Er 11 EDEADLK Em "Resource deadlock avoided" . 155An attempt was made to lock a system resource that 156would have resulted in a deadlock situation. 157.It Er 12 ENOMEM Em "Cannot allocate memory" . 158The new process image required more memory than was allowed by the hardware 159or by system-imposed memory management constraints. 160A lack of swap space is normally temporary; however, 161a lack of core is not. 162Soft limits may be increased to their corresponding hard limits. 163.It Er 13 EACCES Em "Permission denied" . 164An attempt was made to access a file in a way forbidden 165by its file access permissions. 166.It Er 14 EFAULT Em "Bad address" . 167The system detected an invalid address in attempting to 168use an argument of a call. 169.It Er 15 ENOTBLK Em "Block device required" . 170A block device operation was attempted on a non-block device or file. 171.It Er 16 EBUSY Em "Device busy" . 172An attempt to use a system resource which was in use at the time 173in a manner which would have conflicted with the request. 174.It Er 17 EEXIST Em "File exists" . 175An existing file was mentioned in an inappropriate context, 176for instance, as the new link name in a 177.Xr link 2 178system call. 179.It Er 18 EXDEV Em "Cross-device link" . 180A hard link to a file on another file system 181was attempted. 182.It Er 19 ENODEV Em "Operation not supported by device" . 183An attempt was made to apply an inappropriate 184function to a device, 185for example, 186trying to read a write-only device such as a printer. 187.It Er 20 ENOTDIR Em "Not a directory" . 188A component of the specified pathname existed, but it was 189not a directory, when a directory was expected. 190.It Er 21 EISDIR Em "Is a directory" . 191An attempt was made to open a directory with write mode specified. 192.It Er 22 EINVAL Em "Invalid argument" . 193Some invalid argument was supplied. 194(For example, 195specifying an undefined signal to a 196.Xr signal 3 197function 198or a 199.Xr kill 2 200system call). 201.It Er 23 ENFILE Em "Too many open files in system" . 202Maximum number of file descriptors allowable on the system 203has been reached and a requests for an open cannot be satisfied 204until at least one has been closed. 205.It Er 24 EMFILE Em "Too many open files" . 206(As released, the limit on the number of 207open files per process is 64.) 208The 209.Xr getdtablesize 2 210system call will obtain the current limit. 211.It Er 25 ENOTTY Em "Inappropriate ioctl for device" . 212A control function (see 213.Xr ioctl 2 ) 214was attempted for a file or 215special device for which the operation was inappropriate. 216.It Er 26 ETXTBSY Em "Text file busy" . 217The new process was a pure procedure (shared text) file 218which was open for writing by another process, or 219while the pure procedure file was being executed an 220.Xr open 2 221call requested write access. 222.It Er 27 EFBIG Em "File too large" . 223The size of a file exceeded the maximum. 224.It Er 28 ENOSPC Em "No space left on device" . 225A 226.Xr write 2 227to an ordinary file, the creation of a 228directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory 229entry failed because no more disk blocks were available 230on the file system, or the allocation of an inode for a newly 231created file failed because no more inodes were available 232on the file system. 233.It Er 29 ESPIPE Em "Illegal seek" . 234An 235.Xr lseek 2 236system call was issued on a socket, pipe or 237.Tn FIFO . 238.It Er 30 EROFS Em "Read-only file system" . 239An attempt was made to modify a file or directory 240on a file system that was read-only at the time. 241.It Er 31 EMLINK Em "Too many links" . 242Maximum allowable hard links to a single file has been exceeded (limit 243of 32767 hard links per file). 244.It Er 32 EPIPE Em "Broken pipe" . 245A write on a pipe, socket or 246.Tn FIFO 247for which there is no process 248to read the data. 249.It Er 33 EDOM Em "Numerical argument out of domain" . 250A numerical input argument was outside the defined domain of the mathematical 251function. 252.It Er 34 ERANGE Em "Result too large" . 253A numerical result of the function was too large to fit in the 254available space (perhaps exceeded precision). 255.It Er 35 EAGAIN Em "Resource temporarily unavailable" . 256This is a temporary condition and later calls to the 257same routine may complete normally. 258.It Er 36 EINPROGRESS Em "Operation now in progress" . 259An operation that takes a long time to complete (such as 260a 261.Xr connect 2 ) 262was attempted on a non-blocking object (see 263.Xr fcntl 2 ) . 264.It Er 37 EALREADY Em "Operation already in progress" . 265An operation was attempted on a non-blocking object that already 266had an operation in progress. 267.It Er 38 ENOTSOCK Em "Socket operation on non-socket" . 268Self-explanatory. 269.It Er 39 EDESTADDRREQ Em "Destination address required" . 270A required address was omitted from an operation on a socket. 271.It Er 40 EMSGSIZE Em "Message too long" . 272A message sent on a socket was larger than the internal message buffer 273or some other network limit. 274.It Er 41 EPROTOTYPE Em "Protocol wrong type for socket" . 275A protocol was specified that does not support the semantics of the 276socket type requested. 277For example, you cannot use the 278.Tn ARPA 279Internet 280.Tn UDP 281protocol with type 282.Dv SOCK_STREAM . 283.It Er 42 ENOPROTOOPT Em "Protocol not available" . 284A bad option or level was specified in a 285.Xr getsockopt 2 286or 287.Xr setsockopt 2 288call. 289.It Er 43 EPROTONOSUPPORT Em "Protocol not supported" . 290The protocol has not been configured into the 291system or no implementation for it exists. 292.It Er 44 ESOCKTNOSUPPORT Em "Socket type not supported" . 293The support for the socket type has not been configured into the 294system or no implementation for it exists. 295.It Er 45 EOPNOTSUPP Em "Operation not supported" . 296The attempted operation is not supported for the type of object referenced. 297Usually this occurs when a file descriptor refers to a file or socket 298that cannot support this operation, 299for example, trying to 300.Em accept 301a connection on a datagram socket. 302.It Er 46 EPFNOSUPPORT Em "Protocol family not supported" . 303The protocol family has not been configured into the 304system or no implementation for it exists. 305.It Er 47 EAFNOSUPPORT Em "Address family not supported by protocol family" . 306An address incompatible with the requested protocol was used. 307For example, you should not necessarily expect to be able to use 308.Tn NS 309addresses with 310.Tn ARPA 311Internet protocols. 312.It Er 48 EADDRINUSE Em "Address already in use" . 313Only one usage of each address is normally permitted. 314.It Er 49 EADDRNOTAVAIL Em "Cannot assign requested address" . 315Normally results from an attempt to create a socket with an 316address not on this machine. 317.It Er 50 ENETDOWN Em "Network is down" . 318A socket operation encountered a dead network. 319.It Er 51 ENETUNREACH Em "Network is unreachable" . 320A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable network. 321.It Er 52 ENETRESET Em "Network dropped connection on reset" . 322The host you were connected to crashed and rebooted. 323.It Er 53 ECONNABORTED Em "Software caused connection abort" . 324A connection abort was caused internal to your host machine. 325.It Er 54 ECONNRESET Em "Connection reset by peer" . 326A connection was forcibly closed by a peer. 327This normally 328results from a loss of the connection on the remote socket 329due to a timeout or a reboot. 330.It Er 55 ENOBUFS Em "\&No buffer space available" . 331An operation on a socket or pipe was not performed because 332the system lacked sufficient buffer space or because a queue was full. 333.It Er 56 EISCONN Em "Socket is already connected" . 334A 335.Xr connect 2 336request was made on an already connected socket; or, 337a 338.Xr sendto 2 339or 340.Xr sendmsg 2 341request on a connected socket specified a destination 342when already connected. 343.It Er 57 ENOTCONN Em "Socket is not connected" . 344An request to send or receive data was disallowed because 345the socket was not connected and (when sending on a datagram socket) 346no address was supplied. 347.It Er 58 ESHUTDOWN Em "Cannot send after socket shutdown" . 348A request to send data was disallowed because the socket 349had already been shut down with a previous 350.Xr shutdown 2 351call. 352.It Er 60 ETIMEDOUT Em "Operation timed out" . 353A 354.Xr connect 2 355or 356.Xr send 2 357request failed because the connected party did not 358properly respond after a period of time. 359(The timeout 360period is dependent on the communication protocol.) 361.It Er 61 ECONNREFUSED Em "Connection refused" . 362No connection could be made because the target machine actively 363refused it. 364This usually results from trying to connect 365to a service that is inactive on the foreign host. 366.It Er 62 ELOOP Em "Too many levels of symbolic links" . 367A path name lookup involved more than 32 368.Pq Dv MAXSYMLINKS 369symbolic links. 370.It Er 63 ENAMETOOLONG Em "File name too long" . 371A component of a path name exceeded 372.Brq Dv NAME_MAX 373characters, or an entire 374path name exceeded 375.Brq Dv PATH_MAX 376characters. 377(See also the description of 378.Dv _PC_NO_TRUNC 379in 380.Xr pathconf 2 . ) 381.It Er 64 EHOSTDOWN Em "Host is down" . 382A socket operation failed because the destination host was down. 383.It Er 65 EHOSTUNREACH Em "No route to host" . 384A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host. 385.It Er 66 ENOTEMPTY Em "Directory not empty" . 386A directory with entries other than 387.Ql .\& 388and 389.Ql ..\& 390was supplied to a remove directory or rename call. 391.It Er 67 EPROCLIM Em "Too many processes" . 392.It Er 68 EUSERS Em "Too many users" . 393The quota system ran out of table entries. 394.It Er 69 EDQUOT Em "Disc quota exceeded" . 395A 396.Xr write 2 397to an ordinary file, the creation of a 398directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory 399entry failed because the user's quota of disk blocks was 400exhausted, or the allocation of an inode for a newly 401created file failed because the user's quota of inodes 402was exhausted. 403.It Er 70 ESTALE Em "Stale NFS file handle" . 404An attempt was made to access an open file (on an 405.Tn NFS 406file system) 407which is now unavailable as referenced by the file descriptor. 408This may indicate the file was deleted on the 409.Tn NFS 410server or some 411other catastrophic event occurred. 412.It Er 72 EBADRPC Em "RPC struct is bad" . 413Exchange of 414.Tn RPC 415information was unsuccessful. 416.It Er 73 ERPCMISMATCH Em "RPC version wrong" . 417The version of 418.Tn RPC 419on the remote peer is not compatible with 420the local version. 421.It Er 74 EPROGUNAVAIL Em "RPC prog. not avail" . 422The requested program is not registered on the remote host. 423.It Er 75 EPROGMISMATCH Em "Program version wrong" . 424The requested version of the program is not available 425on the remote host 426.Pq Tn RPC . 427.It Er 76 EPROCUNAVAIL Em "Bad procedure for program" . 428An 429.Tn RPC 430call was attempted for a procedure which does not exist 431in the remote program. 432.It Er 77 ENOLCK Em "No locks available" . 433A system-imposed limit on the number of simultaneous file 434locks was reached. 435.It Er 78 ENOSYS Em "Function not implemented" . 436Attempted a system call that is not available on this 437system. 438.It Er 79 EFTYPE Em "Inappropriate file type or format" . 439The file was the wrong type for the operation, or a data file had 440the wrong format. 441.It Er 80 EAUTH Em "Authentication error" . 442Attempted to use an invalid authentication ticket to mount a 443.Tn NFS 444file system. 445.It Er 81 ENEEDAUTH Em "Need authenticator" . 446An authentication ticket must be obtained before the given 447.Tn NFS 448file system may be mounted. 449.It Er 82 EIDRM Em "Identifier removed" . 450An IPC identifier was removed while the current process was waiting on it. 451.It Er 83 ENOMSG Em "No message of desired type" . 452An IPC message queue does not contain a message of the desired type, or a 453message catalog does not contain the requested message. 454.It Er 84 EOVERFLOW Em "Value too large to be stored in data type" . 455A numerical result of the function was too large to be stored in the caller 456provided space. 457.It Er 85 ECANCELED Em "Operation canceled" . 458The scheduled operation was canceled. 459.It Er 86 EILSEQ Em "Illegal byte sequence" . 460While decoding a multibyte character the function came along an 461invalid or an incomplete sequence of bytes or the given wide 462character is invalid. 463.It Er 87 ENOATTR Em "Attribute not found" . 464The specified extended attribute does not exist. 465.It Er 88 EDOOFUS Em "Programming error" . 466A function or API is being abused in a way which could only be detected 467at run-time. 468.It Er 89 EBADMSG Em "Bad message" . 469A corrupted message was detected. 470.It Er 90 EMULTIHOP Em "Multihop attempted" . 471This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems. 472.It Er 91 ENOLINK Em "Link has been severed" . 473This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems. 474.It Er 92 EPROTO Em "Protocol error" . 475A device or socket encountered an unrecoverable protocol error. 476.It Er 93 ENOMEDIUM Em "No medium found" . 477This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems. 478.El 479.Sh DEFINITIONS 480.Bl -tag -width Ds 481.It Process ID . 482Each active process in the system is uniquely identified by a non-negative 483integer called a process ID. 484The range of this ID is from 0 to 99999. 485.It Parent process ID 486A new process is created by a currently active process (see 487.Xr fork 2 ) . 488The parent process ID of a process is initially the process ID of its creator. 489If the creating process exits, 490the parent process ID of each child is set to the ID of a system process, 491.Xr init 8 . 492.It Process Group 493Each active process is a member of a process group that is identified by 494a non-negative integer called the process group ID. 495This is the process 496ID of the group leader. 497This grouping permits the signaling of related 498processes (see 499.Xr termios 4 ) 500and the job control mechanisms of 501.Xr csh 1 . 502.It Session 503A session is a set of one or more process groups. 504A session is created by a successful call to 505.Xr setsid 2 , 506which causes the caller to become the only member of the only process 507group in the new session. 508.It Session leader 509A process that has created a new session by a successful call to 510.Xr setsid 2 , 511is known as a session leader. 512Only a session leader may acquire a terminal as its controlling terminal (see 513.Xr termios 4 ) . 514.It Controlling process 515A session leader with a controlling terminal is a controlling process. 516.It Controlling terminal 517A terminal that is associated with a session is known as the controlling 518terminal for that session and its members. 519.It "Terminal Process Group ID" 520A terminal may be acquired by a session leader as its controlling terminal. 521Once a terminal is associated with a session, any of the process groups 522within the session may be placed into the foreground by setting 523the terminal process group ID to the ID of the process group. 524This facility is used 525to arbitrate between multiple jobs contending for the same terminal; 526(see 527.Xr csh 1 528and 529.Xr tty 4 ) . 530.It "Orphaned Process Group" 531A process group is considered to be 532.Em orphaned 533if it is not under the control of a job control shell. 534More precisely, a process group is orphaned 535when none of its members has a parent process that is in the same session 536as the group, 537but is in a different process group. 538Note that when a process exits, the parent process for its children 539is changed to be 540.Xr init 8 , 541which is in a separate session. 542Not all members of an orphaned process group are necessarily orphaned 543processes (those whose creating process has exited). 544The process group of a session leader is orphaned by definition. 545.It "Real User ID and Real Group ID" 546Each user on the system is identified by a positive integer 547termed the real user ID. 548.Pp 549Each user is also a member of one or more groups. 550One of these groups is distinguished from others and 551used in implementing accounting facilities. 552The positive 553integer corresponding to this distinguished group is termed 554the real group ID. 555.Pp 556All processes have a real user ID and real group ID. 557These are initialized from the equivalent attributes 558of the process that created it. 559.It "Effective User Id, Effective Group Id, and Group Access List" 560Access to system resources is governed by two values: 561the effective user ID, and the group access list. 562The first member of the group access list is also known as the 563effective group ID. 564(In POSIX.1, the group access list is known as the set of supplementary 565group IDs, and it is unspecified whether the effective group ID is 566a member of the list.) 567.Pp 568The effective user ID and effective group ID are initially the 569process's real user ID and real group ID respectively. 570Either 571may be modified through execution of a set-user-ID or set-group-ID 572file (possibly by one its ancestors) (see 573.Xr execve 2 ) . 574By convention, the effective group ID (the first member of the group access 575list) is duplicated, so that the execution of a set-group-ID program 576does not result in the loss of the original (real) group ID. 577.Pp 578The group access list is a set of group IDs 579used only in determining resource accessibility. 580Access checks 581are performed as described below in ``File Access Permissions''. 582.It "Saved Set User ID and Saved Set Group ID" 583When a process executes a new file, the effective user ID is set 584to the owner of the file if the file is set-user-ID, and the effective 585group ID (first element of the group access list) is set to the group 586of the file if the file is set-group-ID. 587The effective user ID of the process is then recorded as the saved set-user-ID, 588and the effective group ID of the process is recorded as the saved set-group-ID. 589These values may be used to regain those values as the effective user 590or group ID after reverting to the real ID (see 591.Xr setuid 2 ) . 592(In POSIX.1, the saved set-user-ID and saved set-group-ID are optional, 593and are used in setuid and setgid, but this does not work as desired 594for the super-user.) 595.It Super-user 596A process is recognized as a 597.Em super-user 598process and is granted special privileges if its effective user ID is 0. 599.It Descriptor 600An integer assigned by the system when a file is referenced 601by 602.Xr open 2 603or 604.Xr dup 2 , 605or when a socket is created by 606.Xr pipe 2 , 607.Xr socket 2 608or 609.Xr socketpair 2 , 610which uniquely identifies an access path to that file or socket from 611a given process or any of its children. 612.It File Name 613Names consisting of up to 614.Brq Dv NAME_MAX 615characters may be used to name 616an ordinary file, special file, or directory. 617.Pp 618These characters may be arbitrary eight-bit values, 619excluding 620.Dv NUL 621.Tn ( ASCII 6220) and the 623.Ql \&/ 624character (slash, 625.Tn ASCII 62647). 627.Pp 628Note that it is generally unwise to use 629.Ql \&* , 630.Ql \&? , 631.Ql \&[ 632or 633.Ql \&] 634as part of 635file names because of the special meaning attached to these characters 636by the shell. 637.It Path Name 638A path name is a 639.Dv NUL Ns -terminated 640character string starting with an 641optional slash 642.Ql \&/ , 643followed by zero or more directory names separated 644by slashes, optionally followed by a file name. 645The total length of a path name must be less than 646.Brq Dv PATH_MAX 647characters. 648(On some systems, this limit may be infinite.) 649.Pp 650If a path name begins with a slash, the path search begins at the 651.Em root 652directory. 653Otherwise, the search begins from the current working directory. 654A slash by itself names the root directory. 655An empty 656pathname refers to the current directory. 657.It Directory 658A directory is a special type of file that contains entries 659that are references to other files. 660Directory entries are called links. 661By convention, a directory 662contains at least two links, 663.Ql .\& 664and 665.Ql \&.. , 666referred to as 667.Em dot 668and 669.Em dot-dot 670respectively. 671Dot refers to the directory itself and 672dot-dot refers to its parent directory. 673.It "Root Directory and Current Working Directory" 674Each process has associated with it a concept of a root directory 675and a current working directory for the purpose of resolving path 676name searches. 677A process's root directory need not be the root 678directory of the root file system. 679.It File Access Permissions 680Every file in the file system has a set of access permissions. 681These permissions are used in determining whether a process 682may perform a requested operation on the file (such as opening 683a file for writing). 684Access permissions are established at the 685time a file is created. 686They may be changed at some later time 687through the 688.Xr chmod 2 689call. 690.Pp 691File access is broken down according to whether a file may be: read, 692written, or executed. 693Directory files use the execute 694permission to control if the directory may be searched. 695.Pp 696File access permissions are interpreted by the system as 697they apply to three different classes of users: the owner 698of the file, those users in the file's group, anyone else. 699Every file has an independent set of access permissions for 700each of these classes. 701When an access check is made, the system 702decides if permission should be granted by checking the access 703information applicable to the caller. 704.Pp 705Read, write, and execute/search permissions on 706a file are granted to a process if: 707.Pp 708The process's effective user ID is that of the super-user. 709(Note: 710even the super-user cannot execute a non-executable file.) 711.Pp 712The process's effective user ID matches the user ID of the owner 713of the file and the owner permissions allow the access. 714.Pp 715The process's effective user ID does not match the user ID of the 716owner of the file, and either the process's effective 717group ID matches the group ID 718of the file, or the group ID of the file is in 719the process's group access list, 720and the group permissions allow the access. 721.Pp 722Neither the effective user ID nor effective group ID 723and group access list of the process 724match the corresponding user ID and group ID of the file, 725but the permissions for ``other users'' allow access. 726.Pp 727Otherwise, permission is denied. 728.It Sockets and Address Families 729A socket is an endpoint for communication between processes. 730Each socket has queues for sending and receiving data. 731.Pp 732Sockets are typed according to their communications properties. 733These properties include whether messages sent and received 734at a socket require the name of the partner, whether communication 735is reliable, the format used in naming message recipients, etc. 736.Pp 737Each instance of the system supports some 738collection of socket types; consult 739.Xr socket 2 740for more information about the types available and 741their properties. 742.Pp 743Each instance of the system supports some number of sets of 744communications protocols. 745Each protocol set supports addresses of a certain format. 746An Address Family is the set of addresses for a specific group of protocols. 747Each socket has an address 748chosen from the address family in which the socket was created. 749.El 750.Sh SEE ALSO 751.Xr intro 3 , 752.Xr perror 3 , 753.Xr errno 9 754