xref: /dragonfly/lib/libposix1e/acl.3 (revision 0bb9290e)
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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 1.6 2006/08/19 01:36:39 swildner 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, 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
65.In sys/acl.h ,
66although the
67recommended usage is to only ever handle text-form ACLs in applications,
68generated and maintained using
69.Fn acl_from_text
70and
71.Fn acl_to_text ,
72passed directly to and from the management routines.  In this manner,
73an application can remain safely unaware of the contents of ACLs.
74.Pp
75Available functions, sorted by behavior, include:
76.Pp
77.Fn acl_delete_def_file ,
78.Fn acl_delete_file_np ,
79.Fn acl_delete_fd_np
80.Pp
81These functions are described in
82.Xr acl_delete 3 ,
83and may be used to delete ACLs from file system objects.
84.Pp
85.Fn acl_free
86.Pp
87This function is described in
88.Xr acl_free 3 ,
89and may be used to free userland working ACL storage.
90.Pp
91.Fn acl_from_text
92.Pp
93This function is described in
94.Xr acl_from_text 3 ,
95and may be used to convert a text-form ACL into working ACL state, if
96the ACL has POSIX.1e semantics.
97.Pp
98.Fn acl_get_file ,
99.Fn acl_get_fd ,
100.Fn acl_get_fd_np
101.Pp
102These functions are described in
103.Xr acl_get 3 ,
104and may be used to retrieve ACLs from file system objects.
105.Pp
106.Fn acl_init
107.Pp
108This function is described in
109.Xr acl_init 3 ,
110and may be used to allocate a fresh (empty) ACL structure.
111.Pp
112.Fn acl_dup
113.Pp
114This function is described in
115.Xr acl_dup 3 ,
116and may be used to duplicate an ACL structure.
117.Pp
118.Fn acl_set_file ,
119.Fn acl_set_fd ,
120.Fn acl_set_fd_np
121.Pp
122These functions are described in
123.Xr acl_set 3 ,
124and may be used to assign an ACL to a file system object.
125.Pp
126.Fn acl_to_text
127.Pp
128This function is described in
129.Xr acl_to_text 3 ,
130and may be used to generate a text-form of a POSIX.1e semantics ACL.
131.Pp
132.Fn acl_valid ,
133.Fn acl_valid_file_np ,
134.Fn acl_valid_fd_np
135.Pp
136Thee functions are described in
137.Xr acl_valid 3 ,
138and may be used to validate an ACL as correct POSIX.1e-semantics, or
139as appropriate for a particular file system object regardless of semantics.
140.Pp
141Documentation of the internal kernel interfaces backing these calls may
142be found in
143.Xr acl 9 .
144The syscalls between the internal interfaces and the public library
145routines may change over time, and as such are not documented.  They are
146not intended to be called directly without going through the library.
147.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
148.Dx Ns 's
149support for POSIX.1e interfaces and features is still under
150development at this time.
151.Sh ENVIRONMENT
152POSIX.1e assigns security labels to all objects, extending the security
153functionality described in POSIX.1.  These additional labels provide
154fine-grained discretionary access control, fine-grained capabilities,
155and labels necessary for mandatory access control.  POSIX.2c describes
156a set of userland utilities for manipulating these labels.  These userland
157utilities are not bundled with
158.Dx
159so as to discourage their
160use in the short term.
161.\" .Sh FILES
162.Sh SEE ALSO
163.Xr acl 3 ,
164.Xr acl_dup 3 ,
165.Xr acl_free 3 ,
166.Xr acl_from_text 3 ,
167.Xr acl_get 3 ,
168.Xr acl_set 3 ,
169.Xr acl_to_text 3 ,
170.Xr acl_valid 3 ,
171.Xr acl 9
172.Sh STANDARDS
173POSIX.1e is described in IEEE POSIX.1e draft 17.  Discussion
174of the draft continues on the cross-platform POSIX.1e implementation
175mailing list.  To join this list, see the
176.Fx
177POSIX.1e implementation
178page for more information.
179.Sh HISTORY
180POSIX.1e support was introduced in
181.Fx 4.0 ,
182and development continues.
183.Sh AUTHORS
184.An Robert N M Watson
185.Sh BUGS
186These features are not yet fully implemented.  In particular, the shipped
187version of UFS/FFS does not support storage of additional security labels,
188and so is unable to (easily) provide support for most of these features.
189