xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/posix1e/acl.3 (revision 77a0943ded95b9e6438f7db70c4a28e4d93946d4)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2000 Robert N. M. Watson
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26.\" $FreeBSD$
27.\"
28.Dd January 28, 2000
29.Dt ACL 3
30.Os FreeBSD 4.0
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm acl
33.Nd introduction to the POSIX.1e ACL security API
34.Sh LIBRARY
35.Lb libposix1e
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.Fd #include <sys/types.h>
38.Fd #include <sys/acl.h>
39.Sh DESCRIPTION
40As shipped,
41.Fx 4.0
42permits file systems to export
43Access Control Lists via the VFS, and provides a library for userland
44access to and manipulation of these ACLs, but support for ACLs is not
45provided by any file systems shipped in the base operating system.
46The library calls shipped with 4.0 include routines to allocate,
47duplicate, retrieve, set, and validate ACLs associated with file objects.
48As well as the POSIX.1e routines, there are a number of non-portable
49extensions defined that allow for alternative ACL semantics than the
50POSIX.1e semantics, such as AFS, NTFS, Coda, and NWFS semantics.  Where
51routines are non-standard, they are suffixed with _np to indicate that
52they are not portable.
53
54POSIX.1e describes a set of ACL manipulation routines to manage the
55contents of ACLs, as well as their relationships with files.  This
56manipulation library is not currently implemented in
57.Fx ,
58although
59a third party library was under development at the time this document
60was written.  There is a general consensus that the POSIX.1e manipulation
61routines are ambiguously defined in the specification, and don't meet the
62needs of most applications.  For the time being, applications may
63directly manipulate the ACL structures, defined in acl.h, although the
64recommended usage is to only ever handle text-form ACLs in applications,
65generated and maintained using
66.Fn acl_from_text
67and
68.Fn acl_to_text ,
69passed directly to and from the management routines.  In this manner,
70an application can remain safely unaware of the contents of ACLs.
71
72Available functions, sorted by behavior, include:
73
74.Fn acl_delete_def_file ,
75.Fn acl_delete_file_np ,
76.Fn acl_delete_fd_np
77
78These functions are described in
79.Xr acl_delete 3 ,
80and may be used to delete ACLs from file system objects.
81
82.Fn acl_free
83
84This function is described in
85.Xr acl_free 3 ,
86and may be used to free userland working ACL storage.
87
88.Fn acl_from_text
89
90This function is described in
91.Xr acl_from_text 3 ,
92and may be used to convert a text-form ACL into working ACL state, if
93the ACL has POSIX.1e semantics.
94
95.Fn acl_get_file ,
96.Fn acl_get_fd ,
97.Fn acl_get_fd_np
98
99These functions are described in
100.Xr acl_get 3 ,
101and may be used to retrieve ACLs from file system objects.
102
103.Fn acl_init
104
105This function is described in
106.Xr acl_init 3 ,
107and may be used to allocate a fresh (empty) ACL structure.
108
109.Fn acl_dup
110
111This function is described in
112.Xr acl_dup 3 ,
113and may be used to duplicate an ACL structure.
114
115.Fn acl_set_file ,
116.Fn acl_set_fd ,
117.Fn acl_set_fd_np
118
119These functions are described in
120.Xr acl_set 3 ,
121and may be used to assign an ACL to a file system object.
122
123.Fn acl_to_text
124
125This function is described in
126.Xr acl_to_text 3 ,
127and may be used to generate a text-form of a POSIX.1e semantics ACL.
128
129.Fn acl_valid ,
130.Fn acl_valid_file_np ,
131.Fn acl_valid_fd_np
132
133Thee functions are described in
134.Xr acl_valid 3 ,
135and may be used to validate an ACL as correct POSIX.1e-semantics, or
136as appropriate for a particular file system object regardless of semantics.
137
138Documentation of the internal kernel interfaces backing these calls may
139be found in
140.Xr acl 9 .
141The syscalls between the internal interfaces and the public library
142routines may change over time, and as such are not documented.  They are
143not intended to be called directly without going through the library.
144.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
145.Fx Ns 's
146support for POSIX.1e interfaces and features is still under
147development at this time.
148.Sh ENVIRONMENT
149POSIX.1e assigns security labels to all objects, extending the security
150functionality described in POSIX.1.  These additional labels provide
151fine-grained discretionary access control, fine-grained capabilities,
152and labels necessary for mandatory access control.  POSIX.2c describes
153a set of userland utilities for manipulating these labels.  These userland
154utilities are not bundled with
155.Fx 4.0
156so as to discourage their
157use in the short term.
158.\" .Sh FILES
159.Sh SEE ALSO
160.Xr acl_dup 3 ,
161.Xr acl_free 3 ,
162.Xr acl_from_text 3 ,
163.Xr acl_get 3 ,
164.Xr acl_set 3 ,
165.Xr acl_to_text 3 ,
166.Xr acl_valid 3 ,
167.Xr acl 9 ,
168.Xr posix1e 3
169.Sh STANDARDS
170POSIX.1e is described in IEEE POSIX.1e draft 17.  Discussion
171of the draft continues on the cross-platform POSIX.1e implementation
172mailing list.  To join this list, see the
173.Fx
174POSIX.1e implementation
175page for more information.
176.Sh HISTORY
177POSIX.1e support was introduced in
178.Fx 4.0 ,
179and development continues.
180.Sh AUTHORS
181.An Robert N M Watson
182.Sh BUGS
183These features are not yet fully implemented.
184