xref: /dragonfly/lib/libposix1e/acl.3 (revision c9f721c2)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2000 Robert N. M. Watson
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26.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libposix1e/acl.3,v 1.2.2.5 2001/12/20 16:27:06 ru Exp $
27.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libposix1e/acl.3,v 1.3 2004/03/11 12:28:52 hmp Exp $
28.\"
29.Dd January 28, 2000
30.Dt ACL 3
31.Os
32.Sh NAME
33.Nm acl
34.Nd introduction to the POSIX.1e ACL security API
35.Sh LIBRARY
36.Lb libposix1e
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.In sys/types.h
39.In sys/acl.h
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41As shipped,
42.Dx
43permits file systems to export
44Access Control Lists via the VFS, and provides a library for userland
45access to and manipulation of these ACLs, but support for ACLs is not
46provided by any file systems shipped in the base operating system.
47The library calls shipped with 4.0 include routines to allocate,
48duplicate, retrieve, set, and validate ACLs associated with file objects.
49As well as the POSIX.1e routines, there are a number of non-portable
50extensions defined that allow for alternative ACL semantics than the
51POSIX.1e semantics, such as AFS, NTFS, Coda, and NWFS semantics.  Where
52routines are non-standard, they are suffixed with _np to indicate that
53they are not portable.
54.Pp
55POSIX.1e describes a set of ACL manipulation routines to manage the
56contents of ACLs, as well as their relationships with files.  This
57manipulation library is not currently implemented in
58.Dx ,
59although
60a third party library was under development at the time this document
61was written.  There is a general consensus that the POSIX.1e manipulation
62routines are ambiguously defined in the specification, and don't meet the
63needs of most applications.  For the time being, applications may
64directly manipulate the ACL structures, defined in acl.h, although the
65recommended usage is to only ever handle text-form ACLs in applications,
66generated and maintained using
67.Fn acl_from_text
68and
69.Fn acl_to_text ,
70passed directly to and from the management routines.  In this manner,
71an application can remain safely unaware of the contents of ACLs.
72.Pp
73Available functions, sorted by behavior, include:
74.Pp
75.Fn acl_delete_def_file ,
76.Fn acl_delete_file_np ,
77.Fn acl_delete_fd_np
78.Pp
79These functions are described in
80.Xr acl_delete 3 ,
81and may be used to delete ACLs from file system objects.
82.Pp
83.Fn acl_free
84.Pp
85This function is described in
86.Xr acl_free 3 ,
87and may be used to free userland working ACL storage.
88.Pp
89.Fn acl_from_text
90.Pp
91This function is described in
92.Xr acl_from_text 3 ,
93and may be used to convert a text-form ACL into working ACL state, if
94the ACL has POSIX.1e semantics.
95.Pp
96.Fn acl_get_file ,
97.Fn acl_get_fd ,
98.Fn acl_get_fd_np
99.Pp
100These functions are described in
101.Xr acl_get 3 ,
102and may be used to retrieve ACLs from file system objects.
103.Pp
104.Fn acl_init
105.Pp
106This function is described in
107.Xr acl_init 3 ,
108and may be used to allocate a fresh (empty) ACL structure.
109.Pp
110.Fn acl_dup
111.Pp
112This function is described in
113.Xr acl_dup 3 ,
114and may be used to duplicate an ACL structure.
115.Pp
116.Fn acl_set_file ,
117.Fn acl_set_fd ,
118.Fn acl_set_fd_np
119.Pp
120These functions are described in
121.Xr acl_set 3 ,
122and may be used to assign an ACL to a file system object.
123.Pp
124.Fn acl_to_text
125.Pp
126This function is described in
127.Xr acl_to_text 3 ,
128and may be used to generate a text-form of a POSIX.1e semantics ACL.
129.Pp
130.Fn acl_valid ,
131.Fn acl_valid_file_np ,
132.Fn acl_valid_fd_np
133.Pp
134Thee functions are described in
135.Xr acl_valid 3 ,
136and may be used to validate an ACL as correct POSIX.1e-semantics, or
137as appropriate for a particular file system object regardless of semantics.
138.Pp
139Documentation of the internal kernel interfaces backing these calls may
140be found in
141.Xr acl 9 .
142The syscalls between the internal interfaces and the public library
143routines may change over time, and as such are not documented.  They are
144not intended to be called directly without going through the library.
145.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
146.Dx Ns 's
147support for POSIX.1e interfaces and features is still under
148development at this time.
149.Sh ENVIRONMENT
150POSIX.1e assigns security labels to all objects, extending the security
151functionality described in POSIX.1.  These additional labels provide
152fine-grained discretionary access control, fine-grained capabilities,
153and labels necessary for mandatory access control.  POSIX.2c describes
154a set of userland utilities for manipulating these labels.  These userland
155utilities are not bundled with
156.Dx
157so as to discourage their
158use in the short term.
159.\" .Sh FILES
160.Sh SEE ALSO
161.Xr acl 3 ,
162.Xr acl_dup 3 ,
163.Xr acl_free 3 ,
164.Xr acl_from_text 3 ,
165.Xr acl_get 3 ,
166.Xr acl_set 3 ,
167.Xr acl_to_text 3 ,
168.Xr acl_valid 3 ,
169.Xr acl 9
170.Sh STANDARDS
171POSIX.1e is described in IEEE POSIX.1e draft 17.  Discussion
172of the draft continues on the cross-platform POSIX.1e implementation
173mailing list.  To join this list, see the
174.Fx
175POSIX.1e implementation
176page for more information.
177.Sh HISTORY
178POSIX.1e support was introduced in
179.Fx 4.0 ,
180and development continues.
181.Sh AUTHORS
182.An Robert N M Watson
183.Sh BUGS
184These features are not yet fully implemented.  In particular, the shipped
185version of UFS/FFS does not support storage of additional security labels,
186and so is unable to (easily) provide support for most of these features.
187