xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/capsicum.4 (revision fae50821ae22099d0406090228bc4c5b6af693ad)
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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.Sh DESCRIPTION
39.Nm
40is a lightweight OS capability and sandbox framework implementing a hybrid
41capability system model.
42.Nm
43can be used for application and library compartmentalisation, the
44decomposition of larger bodies of software into isolated (sandboxed)
45components in order to implement security policies and limit the impact of
46software vulnerabilities.
47.Pp
48.Nm
49provides two core kernel primitives:
50.Bl -tag -width indent
51.It capability mode
52A process mode, entered by invoking
53.Xr cap_enter 2 ,
54in which access to global OS namespaces (such as the file system and PID
55namespaces) is restricted; only explicitly delegated rights, referenced by
56memory mappings or file descriptors, may be used.
57Once set, the flag is inherited by future children processes, and may not be
58cleared.
59.It capabilities
60Limit operations that can be called on file descriptors.
61For example, a file descriptor returned by
62.Xr open 2
63may be refined using
64.Xr cap_rights_limit 2
65so that only
66.Xr read 2
67and
68.Xr write 2
69can be called, but not
70.Xr fchmod 2 .
71The complete list of the capability rights can be found in the
72.Xr rights 4
73manual page.
74.El
75.Pp
76In some cases,
77.Nm
78requires use of alternatives to traditional POSIX APIs in order to name
79objects using capabilities rather than global namespaces:
80.Bl -tag -width indent
81.It process descriptors
82File descriptors representing processes, allowing parent processes to manage
83child processes without requiring access to the PID namespace; described in
84greater detail in
85.Xr procdesc 4 .
86.It anonymous shared memory
87An extension to the POSIX shared memory API to support anonymous swap objects
88associated with file descriptors; described in greater detail in
89.Xr shm_open 2 .
90.El
91.Sh SEE ALSO
92.Xr cap_enter 2 ,
93.Xr cap_fcntls_limit 2 ,
94.Xr cap_getmode 2 ,
95.Xr cap_ioctls_limit 2 ,
96.Xr cap_rights_limit 2 ,
97.Xr fchmod 2 ,
98.Xr open 2 ,
99.Xr pdfork 2 ,
100.Xr pdgetpid 2 ,
101.Xr pdkill 2 ,
102.Xr pdwait4 2 ,
103.Xr read 2 ,
104.Xr shm_open 2 ,
105.Xr write 2 ,
106.Xr cap_rights_get 3 ,
107.Xr libcapsicum 3 ,
108.Xr procdesc 4 ,
109.Xr casperd 8
110.Sh HISTORY
111.Nm
112first appeared in
113.Fx 9.0 ,
114and was developed at the University of Cambridge.
115.Sh AUTHORS
116.Nm
117was developed by
118.An -nosplit
119.An "Robert Watson" Aq rwatson@FreeBSD.org
120and
121.An "Jonathan Anderson" Aq jonathan@FreeBSD.org
122at the University of Cambridge, and
123.An "Ben Laurie" Aq benl@FreeBSD.org
124and
125.An "Kris Kennaway" Aq kris@FreeBSD.org
126at Google, Inc., and
127.An "Pawel Jakub Dawidek" Aq pawel@dawidek.net .
128.Sh BUGS
129.Nm
130is considered experimental in
131.Fx .
132