setreuid, setregid - set real and/or effective user or group ID
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int setreuid(uid_t ruid, uid_t euid);
int setregid(gid_t rgid, gid_t egid);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
feature_test_macros(7)):
setreuid(),
setregid():
_XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500
|| /* Since glibc 2.19: */ _DEFAULT_SOURCE
|| /* Glibc versions <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE
setreuid() sets real and effective user IDs of the calling process.
Supplying a value of -1 for either the real or effective user ID forces the
system to leave that ID unchanged.
Unprivileged processes may only set the effective user ID to the real user ID,
the effective user ID, or the saved set-user-ID.
Unprivileged users may only set the real user ID to the real user ID or the
effective user ID.
If the real user ID is set (i.e.,
ruid is not -1) or the effective user
ID is set to a value not equal to the previous real user ID, the saved
set-user-ID will be set to the new effective user ID.
Completely analogously,
setregid() sets real and effective group ID's of
the calling process, and all of the above holds with "group" instead
of "user".
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and
errno is set
appropriately.
Note: there are cases where
setreuid() can fail even when the
caller is UID 0; it is a grave security error to omit checking for a failure
return from
setreuid().
- EAGAIN
- The call would change the caller's real UID (i.e., ruid does not
match the caller's real UID), but there was a temporary failure allocating
the necessary kernel data structures.
- EAGAIN
- ruid does not match the caller's real UID and this call would bring
the number of processes belonging to the real user ID ruid over the
caller's RLIMIT_NPROC resource limit. Since Linux 3.1, this error
case no longer occurs (but robust applications should check for this
error); see the description of EAGAIN in execve(2).
- EINVAL
- One or more of the target user or group IDs is not valid in this user
namespace.
- EPERM
- The calling process is not privileged (on Linux, does not have the
necessary capability in its user namespace: CAP_SETUID in the case
of setreuid(), or CAP_SETGID in the case of
setregid()) and a change other than (i) swapping the effective user
(group) ID with the real user (group) ID, or (ii) setting one to the value
of the other or (iii) setting the effective user (group) ID to the value
of the saved set-user-ID (saved set-group-ID) was specified.
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, 4.3BSD (
setreuid() and
setregid()
first appeared in 4.2BSD).
Setting the effective user (group) ID to the saved set-user-ID (saved
set-group-ID) is possible since Linux 1.1.37 (1.1.38).
POSIX.1 does not specify all of the UID changes that Linux permits for an
unprivileged process. For
setreuid(), the effective user ID can be made
the same as the real user ID or the saved set-user-ID, and it is unspecified
whether unprivileged processes may set the real user ID to the real user ID,
the effective user ID, or the saved set-user-ID. For
setregid(), the
real group ID can be changed to the value of the saved set-group-ID, and the
effective group ID can be changed to the value of the real group ID or the
saved set-group-ID. The precise details of what ID changes are permitted vary
across implementations.
POSIX.1 makes no specification about the effect of these calls on the saved
set-user-ID and saved set-group-ID.
The original Linux
setreuid() and
setregid() system calls
supported only 16-bit user and group IDs. Subsequently, Linux 2.4 added
setreuid32() and
setregid32(), supporting 32-bit IDs. The glibc
setreuid() and
setregid() wrapper functions transparently deal
with the variations across kernel versions.
At the kernel level, user IDs and group IDs are a per-thread attribute. However,
POSIX requires that all threads in a process share the same credentials. The
NPTL threading implementation handles the POSIX requirements by providing
wrapper functions for the various system calls that change process UIDs and
GIDs. These wrapper functions (including those for
setreuid() and
setregid()) employ a signal-based technique to ensure that when one
thread changes credentials, all of the other threads in the process also
change their credentials. For details, see
nptl(7).
getgid(2),
getuid(2),
seteuid(2),
setgid(2),
setresuid(2),
setuid(2),
capabilities(7),
credentials(7),
user_namespaces(7)