xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/capsicum.4 (revision 4c9e27bd0a5f7fda85b0c0bf750575aee300a172)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2011, 2013 Robert N. M. Watson
3.\" Copyright (c) 2011 Jonathan Anderson
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27.\" $FreeBSD$
28.\"
29.Dd October 19, 2013
30.Dt CAPSICUM 4
31.Os
32.Sh NAME
33.Nm Capsicum
34.Nd lightweight OS capability and sandbox framework
35.Sh SYNOPSIS
36.Cd "options CAPABILITY_MODE"
37.Cd "options CAPABILITIES"
38.Cd "options PROCDESC"
39.Sh DESCRIPTION
40.Nm
41is a lightweight OS capability and sandbox framework implementing a hybrid
42capability system model.
43.Nm
44can be used for application and library compartmentalisation, the
45decomposition of larger bodies of software into isolated (sandboxed)
46components in order to implement security policies and limit the impact of
47software vulnerabilities.
48.Pp
49.Nm
50provides two core kernel primitives:
51.Bl -tag -width indent
52.It capability mode
53A process mode, entered by invoking
54.Xr cap_enter 2 ,
55in which access to global OS namespaces (such as the file system and PID
56namespaces) is restricted; only explicitly delegated rights, referenced by
57memory mappings or file descriptors, may be used.
58Once set, the flag is inherited by future children processes, and may not be
59cleared.
60.It capabilities
61Limit operations that can be called on file descriptors.
62For example, a file descriptor returned by
63.Xr open 2
64may be refined using
65.Xr cap_rights_limit 2
66so that only
67.Xr read 2
68and
69.Xr write 2
70can be called, but not
71.Xr fchmod 2 .
72The complete list of the capability rights can be found in the
73.Xr rights 4
74manual page.
75.El
76.Pp
77In some cases,
78.Nm
79requires use of alternatives to traditional POSIX APIs in order to name
80objects using capabilities rather than global namespaces:
81.Bl -tag -width indent
82.It process descriptors
83File descriptors representing processes, allowing parent processes to manage
84child processes without requiring access to the PID namespace; described in
85greater detail in
86.Xr procdesc 4 .
87.It anonymous shared memory
88An extension to the POSIX shared memory API to support anonymous swap objects
89associated with file descriptors; described in greater detail in
90.Xr shm_open 2 .
91.El
92.Sh SEE ALSO
93.Xr cap_enter 2 ,
94.Xr cap_fcntls_limit 2 ,
95.Xr cap_getmode 2 ,
96.Xr cap_ioctls_limit 2 ,
97.Xr cap_rights_limit 2 ,
98.Xr fchmod 2 ,
99.Xr open 2 ,
100.Xr pdfork 2 ,
101.Xr pdgetpid 2 ,
102.Xr pdkill 2 ,
103.Xr pdwait4 2 ,
104.Xr read 2 ,
105.Xr shm_open 2 ,
106.Xr write 2 ,
107.Xr cap_rights_get 3 ,
108.Xr procdesc 4
109.Sh HISTORY
110.Nm
111first appeared in
112.Fx 9.0 ,
113and was developed at the University of Cambridge.
114.Sh AUTHORS
115.Nm
116was developed by
117.An -nosplit
118.An "Robert Watson" Aq rwatson@FreeBSD.org
119and
120.An "Jonathan Anderson" Aq jonathan@FreeBSD.org
121at the University of Cambridge, and
122.An "Ben Laurie" Aq benl@FreeBSD.org
123and
124.An "Kris Kennaway" Aq kris@FreeBSD.org
125at Google, Inc., and
126.An "Pawel Jakub Dawidek" Aq pawel@dawidek.net .
127.Sh BUGS
128.Nm
129is considered experimental in
130.Fx .
131