NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     _secure_path -- determine if a file appears to be secure

LIBRARY    [Toc]    [Back]

     System Utilities Library (libutil, -lutil)

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     #include <sys/types.h>
     #include <libutil.h>

     int
     _secure_path(const char *path, uid_t uid, gid_t gid);

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     This function does some basic security checking on a given path.  It is
     intended to be used by processes running with root privileges in order to
     decide whether or not to trust the contents of a given file.  It uses a
     method often used to detect system compromise.

     A file is considered `secure' if it meets the following conditions:

     1.   The file exists, and is a regular file (not a symlink, device special
 or named pipe, etc.),

     2.   Is not world writable.

     3.   Is owned by the given uid or uid 0, if uid is not -1,

     4.   Is not group writable or it has group ownership by the given gid, if
	  gid is not -1.

RETURN VALUES    [Toc]    [Back]

     This function returns zero if the file exists and may be considered
     secure, -2 if the file does not exist, and -1 otherwise to indicate a
     security failure.	The syslog(3) function is used to log any failure of
     this function, including the reason, at LOG_ERR priority.

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

     The checks carried out are rudimentary and no attempt is made to eliminate
 race conditions between use of this function and access to the file
     referenced.

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     lstat(2), syslog(3)

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     Code from which this function was derived was contributed to the FreeBSD
     project by Berkeley Software Design, Inc.


FreeBSD 5.2.1			  May 2, 1997			 FreeBSD 5.2.1