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Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)intro.2 8.5 (Berkeley) 2/27/95 29.\" $FreeBSD$ 30.\" 31.Dd September 8, 2016 32.Dt INTRO 2 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm intro 36.Nd introduction to system calls and error numbers 37.Sh LIBRARY 38.Lb libc 39.Sh SYNOPSIS 40.In errno.h 41.Sh DESCRIPTION 42This section provides an overview of the system calls, 43their error returns, and other common definitions and concepts. 44.\".Pp 45.\".Sy System call restart 46.\".Pp 47.\"(more later...) 48.Sh RETURN VALUES 49Nearly all of the system calls provide an error number referenced via 50the external identifier errno. 51This identifier is defined in 52.In sys/errno.h 53as 54.Pp 55.Dl extern int * __error(); 56.Dl #define errno (* __error()) 57.Pp 58The 59.Va __error() 60function returns a pointer to a field in the thread specific structure for 61threads other than the initial thread. 62For the initial thread and 63non-threaded processes, 64.Va __error() 65returns a pointer to a global 66.Va errno 67variable that is compatible with the previous definition. 68.Pp 69When a system call detects an error, 70it returns an integer value 71indicating failure (usually -1) 72and sets the variable 73.Va errno 74accordingly. 75(This allows interpretation of the failure on receiving 76a -1 and to take action accordingly.) 77Successful calls never set 78.Va errno ; 79once set, it remains until another error occurs. 80It should only be examined after an error. 81Note that a number of system calls overload the meanings of these 82error numbers, and that the meanings must be interpreted according 83to the type and circumstances of the call. 84.Pp 85The following is a complete list of the errors and their 86names as given in 87.In sys/errno.h . 88.Bl -hang -width Ds 89.It Er 0 Em "Undefined error: 0" . 90Not used. 91.It Er 1 EPERM Em "Operation not permitted" . 92An attempt was made to perform an operation limited to processes 93with appropriate privileges or to the owner of a file or other 94resources. 95.It Er 2 ENOENT Em "No such file or directory" . 96A component of a specified pathname did not exist, or the 97pathname was an empty string. 98.It Er 3 ESRCH Em "No such process" . 99No process could be found corresponding to that specified by the given 100process ID. 101.It Er 4 EINTR Em "Interrupted system call" . 102An asynchronous signal (such as 103.Dv SIGINT 104or 105.Dv SIGQUIT ) 106was caught by the process during the execution of an interruptible 107function. 108If the signal handler performs a normal return, the 109interrupted system call will seem to have returned the error condition. 110.It Er 5 EIO Em "Input/output error" . 111Some physical input or output error occurred. 112This error will not be reported until a subsequent operation on the same file 113descriptor and may be lost (over written) by any subsequent errors. 114.It Er 6 ENXIO Em "Device not configured" . 115Input or output on a special file referred to a device that did not 116exist, or 117made a request beyond the limits of the device. 118This error may also occur when, for example, 119a tape drive is not online or no disk pack is 120loaded on a drive. 121.It Er 7 E2BIG Em "Argument list too long" . 122The number of bytes used for the argument and environment 123list of the new process exceeded the current limit 124.Dv ( NCARGS 125in 126.In sys/param.h ) . 127.It Er 8 ENOEXEC Em "Exec format error" . 128A request was made to execute a file 129that, although it has the appropriate permissions, 130was not in the format required for an 131executable file. 132.It Er 9 EBADF Em "Bad file descriptor" . 133A file descriptor argument was out of range, referred to no open file, 134or a read (write) request was made to a file that was only open for 135writing (reading). 136.It Er 10 ECHILD Em "\&No child processes" . 137A 138.Xr wait 2 139or 140.Xr waitpid 2 141function was executed by a process that had no existing or unwaited-for 142child processes. 143.It Er 11 EDEADLK Em "Resource deadlock avoided" . 144An attempt was made to lock a system resource that 145would have resulted in a deadlock situation. 146.It Er 12 ENOMEM Em "Cannot allocate memory" . 147The new process image required more memory than was allowed by the hardware 148or by system-imposed memory management constraints. 149A lack of swap space is normally temporary; however, 150a lack of core is not. 151Soft limits may be increased to their corresponding hard limits. 152.It Er 13 EACCES Em "Permission denied" . 153An attempt was made to access a file in a way forbidden 154by its file access permissions. 155.It Er 14 EFAULT Em "Bad address" . 156The system detected an invalid address in attempting to 157use an argument of a call. 158.It Er 15 ENOTBLK Em "Block device required" . 159A block device operation was attempted on a non-block device or file. 160.It Er 16 EBUSY Em "Device busy" . 161An attempt to use a system resource which was in use at the time 162in a manner which would have conflicted with the request. 163.It Er 17 EEXIST Em "File exists" . 164An existing file was mentioned in an inappropriate context, 165for instance, as the new link name in a 166.Xr link 2 167system call. 168.It Er 18 EXDEV Em "Cross-device link" . 169A hard link to a file on another file system 170was attempted. 171.It Er 19 ENODEV Em "Operation not supported by device" . 172An attempt was made to apply an inappropriate 173function to a device, 174for example, 175trying to read a write-only device such as a printer. 176.It Er 20 ENOTDIR Em "Not a directory" . 177A component of the specified pathname existed, but it was 178not a directory, when a directory was expected. 179.It Er 21 EISDIR Em "Is a directory" . 180An attempt was made to open a directory with write mode specified. 181.It Er 22 EINVAL Em "Invalid argument" . 182Some invalid argument was supplied. 183(For example, 184specifying an undefined signal to a 185.Xr signal 3 186function 187or a 188.Xr kill 2 189system call). 190.It Er 23 ENFILE Em "Too many open files in system" . 191Maximum number of open files allowable on the system 192has been reached and requests for an open cannot be satisfied 193until at least one has been closed. 194.It Er 24 EMFILE Em "Too many open files" . 195Maximum number of file descriptors allowable in the process 196has been reached and requests for an open cannot be satisfied 197until at least one has been closed. 198The 199.Xr getdtablesize 2 200system call will obtain the current limit. 201.It Er 25 ENOTTY Em "Inappropriate ioctl for device" . 202A control function (see 203.Xr ioctl 2 ) 204was attempted for a file or 205special device for which the operation was inappropriate. 206.It Er 26 ETXTBSY Em "Text file busy" . 207The new process was a pure procedure (shared text) file 208which was open for writing by another process, or 209while the pure procedure file was being executed an 210.Xr open 2 211call requested write access. 212.It Er 27 EFBIG Em "File too large" . 213The size of a file exceeded the maximum. 214.It Er 28 ENOSPC Em "No space left on device" . 215A 216.Xr write 2 217to an ordinary file, the creation of a 218directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory 219entry failed because no more disk blocks were available 220on the file system, or the allocation of an inode for a newly 221created file failed because no more inodes were available 222on the file system. 223.It Er 29 ESPIPE Em "Illegal seek" . 224An 225.Xr lseek 2 226system call was issued on a socket, pipe or 227.Tn FIFO . 228.It Er 30 EROFS Em "Read-only file system" . 229An attempt was made to modify a file or directory 230on a file system that was read-only at the time. 231.It Er 31 EMLINK Em "Too many links" . 232Maximum allowable hard links to a single file has been exceeded (limit 233of 32767 hard links per file). 234.It Er 32 EPIPE Em "Broken pipe" . 235A write on a pipe, socket or 236.Tn FIFO 237for which there is no process 238to read the data. 239.It Er 33 EDOM Em "Numerical argument out of domain" . 240A numerical input argument was outside the defined domain of the mathematical 241function. 242.It Er 34 ERANGE Em "Result too large" . 243A numerical result of the function was too large to fit in the 244available space (perhaps exceeded precision). 245.It Er 35 EAGAIN Em "Resource temporarily unavailable" . 246This is a temporary condition and later calls to the 247same routine may complete normally. 248.It Er 36 EINPROGRESS Em "Operation now in progress" . 249An operation that takes a long time to complete (such as 250a 251.Xr connect 2 ) 252was attempted on a non-blocking object (see 253.Xr fcntl 2 ) . 254.It Er 37 EALREADY Em "Operation already in progress" . 255An operation was attempted on a non-blocking object that already 256had an operation in progress. 257.It Er 38 ENOTSOCK Em "Socket operation on non-socket" . 258Self-explanatory. 259.It Er 39 EDESTADDRREQ Em "Destination address required" . 260A required address was omitted from an operation on a socket. 261.It Er 40 EMSGSIZE Em "Message too long" . 262A message sent on a socket was larger than the internal message buffer 263or some other network limit. 264.It Er 41 EPROTOTYPE Em "Protocol wrong type for socket" . 265A protocol was specified that does not support the semantics of the 266socket type requested. 267For example, you cannot use the 268.Tn ARPA 269Internet 270.Tn UDP 271protocol with type 272.Dv SOCK_STREAM . 273.It Er 42 ENOPROTOOPT Em "Protocol not available" . 274A bad option or level was specified in a 275.Xr getsockopt 2 276or 277.Xr setsockopt 2 278call. 279.It Er 43 EPROTONOSUPPORT Em "Protocol not supported" . 280The protocol has not been configured into the 281system or no implementation for it exists. 282.It Er 44 ESOCKTNOSUPPORT Em "Socket type not supported" . 283The support for the socket type has not been configured into the 284system or no implementation for it exists. 285.It Er 45 EOPNOTSUPP Em "Operation not supported" . 286The attempted operation is not supported for the type of object referenced. 287Usually this occurs when a file descriptor refers to a file or socket 288that cannot support this operation, 289for example, trying to 290.Em accept 291a connection on a datagram socket. 292.It Er 46 EPFNOSUPPORT Em "Protocol family not supported" . 293The protocol family has not been configured into the 294system or no implementation for it exists. 295.It Er 47 EAFNOSUPPORT Em "Address family not supported by protocol family" . 296An address incompatible with the requested protocol was used. 297For example, you should not necessarily expect to be able to use 298.Tn NS 299addresses with 300.Tn ARPA 301Internet protocols. 302.It Er 48 EADDRINUSE Em "Address already in use" . 303Only one usage of each address is normally permitted. 304.It Er 49 EADDRNOTAVAIL Em "Can't assign requested address" . 305Normally results from an attempt to create a socket with an 306address not on this machine. 307.It Er 50 ENETDOWN Em "Network is down" . 308A socket operation encountered a dead network. 309.It Er 51 ENETUNREACH Em "Network is unreachable" . 310A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable network. 311.It Er 52 ENETRESET Em "Network dropped connection on reset" . 312The host you were connected to crashed and rebooted. 313.It Er 53 ECONNABORTED Em "Software caused connection abort" . 314A connection abort was caused internal to your host machine. 315.It Er 54 ECONNRESET Em "Connection reset by peer" . 316A connection was forcibly closed by a peer. 317This normally 318results from a loss of the connection on the remote socket 319due to a timeout or a reboot. 320.It Er 55 ENOBUFS Em "\&No buffer space available" . 321An operation on a socket or pipe was not performed because 322the system lacked sufficient buffer space or because a queue was full. 323.It Er 56 EISCONN Em "Socket is already connected" . 324A 325.Xr connect 2 326request was made on an already connected socket; or, 327a 328.Xr sendto 2 329or 330.Xr sendmsg 2 331request on a connected socket specified a destination 332when already connected. 333.It Er 57 ENOTCONN Em "Socket is not connected" . 334An request to send or receive data was disallowed because 335the socket was not connected and (when sending on a datagram socket) 336no address was supplied. 337.It Er 58 ESHUTDOWN Em "Can't send after socket shutdown" . 338A request to send data was disallowed because the socket 339had already been shut down with a previous 340.Xr shutdown 2 341call. 342.It Er 60 ETIMEDOUT Em "Operation timed out" . 343A 344.Xr connect 2 345or 346.Xr send 2 347request failed because the connected party did not 348properly respond after a period of time. 349(The timeout 350period is dependent on the communication protocol.) 351.It Er 61 ECONNREFUSED Em "Connection refused" . 352No connection could be made because the target machine actively 353refused it. 354This usually results from trying to connect 355to a service that is inactive on the foreign host. 356.It Er 62 ELOOP Em "Too many levels of symbolic links" . 357A path name lookup involved more than 32 358.Pq Dv MAXSYMLINKS 359symbolic links. 360.It Er 63 ENAMETOOLONG Em "File name too long" . 361A component of a path name exceeded 362.Brq Dv NAME_MAX 363characters, or an entire 364path name exceeded 365.Brq Dv PATH_MAX 366characters. 367(See also the description of 368.Dv _PC_NO_TRUNC 369in 370.Xr pathconf 2 . ) 371.It Er 64 EHOSTDOWN Em "Host is down" . 372A socket operation failed because the destination host was down. 373.It Er 65 EHOSTUNREACH Em "No route to host" . 374A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host. 375.It Er 66 ENOTEMPTY Em "Directory not empty" . 376A directory with entries other than 377.Ql .\& 378and 379.Ql ..\& 380was supplied to a remove directory or rename call. 381.It Er 67 EPROCLIM Em "Too many processes" . 382.It Er 68 EUSERS Em "Too many users" . 383The quota system ran out of table entries. 384.It Er 69 EDQUOT Em "Disc quota exceeded" . 385A 386.Xr write 2 387to an ordinary file, the creation of a 388directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory 389entry failed because the user's quota of disk blocks was 390exhausted, or the allocation of an inode for a newly 391created file failed because the user's quota of inodes 392was exhausted. 393.It Er 70 ESTALE Em "Stale NFS file handle" . 394An attempt was made to access an open file (on an 395.Tn NFS 396file system) 397which is now unavailable as referenced by the file descriptor. 398This may indicate the file was deleted on the 399.Tn NFS 400server or some 401other catastrophic event occurred. 402.It Er 72 EBADRPC Em "RPC struct is bad" . 403Exchange of 404.Tn RPC 405information was unsuccessful. 406.It Er 73 ERPCMISMATCH Em "RPC version wrong" . 407The version of 408.Tn RPC 409on the remote peer is not compatible with 410the local version. 411.It Er 74 EPROGUNAVAIL Em "RPC prog. not avail" . 412The requested program is not registered on the remote host. 413.It Er 75 EPROGMISMATCH Em "Program version wrong" . 414The requested version of the program is not available 415on the remote host 416.Pq Tn RPC . 417.It Er 76 EPROCUNAVAIL Em "Bad procedure for program" . 418An 419.Tn RPC 420call was attempted for a procedure which does not exist 421in the remote program. 422.It Er 77 ENOLCK Em "No locks available" . 423A system-imposed limit on the number of simultaneous file 424locks was reached. 425.It Er 78 ENOSYS Em "Function not implemented" . 426Attempted a system call that is not available on this 427system. 428.It Er 79 EFTYPE Em "Inappropriate file type or format" . 429The file was the wrong type for the operation, or a data file had 430the wrong format. 431.It Er 80 EAUTH Em "Authentication error" . 432Attempted to use an invalid authentication ticket to mount a 433.Tn NFS 434file system. 435.It Er 81 ENEEDAUTH Em "Need authenticator" . 436An authentication ticket must be obtained before the given 437.Tn NFS 438file system may be mounted. 439.It Er 82 EIDRM Em "Identifier removed" . 440An IPC identifier was removed while the current process was waiting on it. 441.It Er 83 ENOMSG Em "No message of desired type" . 442An IPC message queue does not contain a message of the desired type, or a 443message catalog does not contain the requested message. 444.It Er 84 EOVERFLOW Em "Value too large to be stored in data type" . 445A numerical result of the function was too large to be stored in the caller 446provided space. 447.It Er 85 ECANCELED Em "Operation canceled" . 448The scheduled operation was canceled. 449.It Er 86 EILSEQ Em "Illegal byte sequence" . 450While decoding a multibyte character the function came along an 451invalid or an incomplete sequence of bytes or the given wide 452character is invalid. 453.It Er 87 ENOATTR Em "Attribute not found" . 454The specified extended attribute does not exist. 455.It Er 88 EDOOFUS Em "Programming error" . 456A function or API is being abused in a way which could only be detected 457at run-time. 458.It Er 89 EBADMSG Em "Bad message" . 459A corrupted message was detected. 460.It Er 90 EMULTIHOP Em "Multihop attempted" . 461This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems. 462.It Er 91 ENOLINK Em "Link has been severed" . 463This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems. 464.It Er 92 EPROTO Em "Protocol error" . 465A device or socket encountered an unrecoverable protocol error. 466.It Er 93 ENOTCAPABLE Em "Capabilities insufficient" . 467An operation on a capability file descriptor requires greater privilege than 468the capability allows. 469.It Er 94 ECAPMODE Em "Not permitted in capability mode" . 470The system call or operation is not permitted for capability mode processes. 471.It Er 95 ENOTRECOVERABLE Em "State not recoverable" . 472The state protected by a robust mutex is not recoverable. 473.It Er 96 EOWNERDEAD Em "Previous owner died" . 474The owner of a robust mutex terminated while holding the mutex lock. 475.El 476.Sh DEFINITIONS 477.Bl -tag -width Ds 478.It Process ID . 479Each active process in the system is uniquely identified by a non-negative 480integer called a process ID. 481The range of this ID is from 0 to 99999. 482.It Parent process ID 483A new process is created by a currently active process (see 484.Xr fork 2 ) . 485The parent process ID of a process is initially the process ID of its creator. 486If the creating process exits, 487the parent process ID of each child is set to the ID of the calling process's 488reaper (see 489.Xr procctl 2 ) , 490normally 491.Xr init 8 . 492.It Process Group 493Each active process is a member of a process group that is identified by 494a non-negative integer called the process group ID. 495This is the process 496ID of the group leader. 497This grouping permits the signaling of related 498processes (see 499.Xr termios 4 ) 500and the job control mechanisms of 501.Xr csh 1 . 502.It Session 503A session is a set of one or more process groups. 504A session is created by a successful call to 505.Xr setsid 2 , 506which causes the caller to become the only member of the only process 507group in the new session. 508.It Session leader 509A process that has created a new session by a successful call to 510.Xr setsid 2 , 511is known as a session leader. 512Only a session leader may acquire a terminal as its controlling terminal (see 513.Xr termios 4 ) . 514.It Controlling process 515A session leader with a controlling terminal is a controlling process. 516.It Controlling terminal 517A terminal that is associated with a session is known as the controlling 518terminal for that session and its members. 519.It "Terminal Process Group ID" 520A terminal may be acquired by a session leader as its controlling terminal. 521Once a terminal is associated with a session, any of the process groups 522within the session may be placed into the foreground by setting 523the terminal process group ID to the ID of the process group. 524This facility is used 525to arbitrate between multiple jobs contending for the same terminal; 526(see 527.Xr csh 1 528and 529.Xr tty 4 ) . 530.It "Orphaned Process Group" 531A process group is considered to be 532.Em orphaned 533if it is not under the control of a job control shell. 534More precisely, a process group is orphaned 535when none of its members has a parent process that is in the same session 536as the group, 537but is in a different process group. 538Note that when a process exits, the parent process for its children 539is normally changed to be 540.Xr init 8 , 541which is in a separate session. 542Not all members of an orphaned process group are necessarily orphaned 543processes (those whose creating process has exited). 544The process group of a session leader is orphaned by definition. 545.It "Real User ID and Real Group ID" 546Each user on the system is identified by a positive integer 547termed the real user ID. 548.Pp 549Each user is also a member of one or more groups. 550One of these groups is distinguished from others and 551used in implementing accounting facilities. 552The positive 553integer corresponding to this distinguished group is termed 554the real group ID. 555.Pp 556All processes have a real user ID and real group ID. 557These are initialized from the equivalent attributes 558of the process that created it. 559.It "Effective User Id, Effective Group Id, and Group Access List" 560Access to system resources is governed by two values: 561the effective user ID, and the group access list. 562The first member of the group access list is also known as the 563effective group ID. 564(In POSIX.1, the group access list is known as the set of supplementary 565group IDs, and it is unspecified whether the effective group ID is 566a member of the list.) 567.Pp 568The effective user ID and effective group ID are initially the 569process's real user ID and real group ID respectively. 570Either 571may be modified through execution of a set-user-ID or set-group-ID 572file (possibly by one its ancestors) (see 573.Xr execve 2 ) . 574By convention, the effective group ID (the first member of the group access 575list) is duplicated, so that the execution of a set-group-ID program 576does not result in the loss of the original (real) group ID. 577.Pp 578The group access list is a set of group IDs 579used only in determining resource accessibility. 580Access checks 581are performed as described below in ``File Access Permissions''. 582.It "Saved Set User ID and Saved Set Group ID" 583When a process executes a new file, the effective user ID is set 584to the owner of the file if the file is set-user-ID, and the effective 585group ID (first element of the group access list) is set to the group 586of the file if the file is set-group-ID. 587The effective user ID of the process is then recorded as the saved set-user-ID, 588and the effective group ID of the process is recorded as the saved set-group-ID. 589These values may be used to regain those values as the effective user 590or group ID after reverting to the real ID (see 591.Xr setuid 2 ) . 592(In POSIX.1, the saved set-user-ID and saved set-group-ID are optional, 593and are used in setuid and setgid, but this does not work as desired 594for the super-user.) 595.It Super-user 596A process is recognized as a 597.Em super-user 598process and is granted special privileges if its effective user ID is 0. 599.It Descriptor 600An integer assigned by the system when a file is referenced 601by 602.Xr open 2 603or 604.Xr dup 2 , 605or when a socket is created by 606.Xr pipe 2 , 607.Xr socket 2 608or 609.Xr socketpair 2 , 610which uniquely identifies an access path to that file or socket from 611a given process or any of its children. 612.It File Name 613Names consisting of up to 614.Brq Dv NAME_MAX 615characters may be used to name 616an ordinary file, special file, or directory. 617.Pp 618These characters may be arbitrary eight-bit values, 619excluding 620.Dv NUL 621.Tn ( ASCII 6220) and the 623.Ql \&/ 624character (slash, 625.Tn ASCII 62647). 627.Pp 628Note that it is generally unwise to use 629.Ql \&* , 630.Ql \&? , 631.Ql \&[ 632or 633.Ql \&] 634as part of 635file names because of the special meaning attached to these characters 636by the shell. 637.It Path Name 638A path name is a 639.Dv NUL Ns -terminated 640character string starting with an 641optional slash 642.Ql \&/ , 643followed by zero or more directory names separated 644by slashes, optionally followed by a file name. 645The total length of a path name must be less than 646.Brq Dv PATH_MAX 647characters. 648(On some systems, this limit may be infinite.) 649.Pp 650If a path name begins with a slash, the path search begins at the 651.Em root 652directory. 653Otherwise, the search begins from the current working directory. 654A slash by itself names the root directory. 655An empty 656pathname refers to the current directory. 657.It Directory 658A directory is a special type of file that contains entries 659that are references to other files. 660Directory entries are called links. 661By convention, a directory 662contains at least two links, 663.Ql .\& 664and 665.Ql \&.. , 666referred to as 667.Em dot 668and 669.Em dot-dot 670respectively. 671Dot refers to the directory itself and 672dot-dot refers to its parent directory. 673.It "Root Directory and Current Working Directory" 674Each process has associated with it a concept of a root directory 675and a current working directory for the purpose of resolving path 676name searches. 677A process's root directory need not be the root 678directory of the root file system. 679.It File Access Permissions 680Every file in the file system has a set of access permissions. 681These permissions are used in determining whether a process 682may perform a requested operation on the file (such as opening 683a file for writing). 684Access permissions are established at the 685time a file is created. 686They may be changed at some later time 687through the 688.Xr chmod 2 689call. 690.Pp 691File access is broken down according to whether a file may be: read, 692written, or executed. 693Directory files use the execute 694permission to control if the directory may be searched. 695.Pp 696File access permissions are interpreted by the system as 697they apply to three different classes of users: the owner 698of the file, those users in the file's group, anyone else. 699Every file has an independent set of access permissions for 700each of these classes. 701When an access check is made, the system 702decides if permission should be granted by checking the access 703information applicable to the caller. 704.Pp 705Read, write, and execute/search permissions on 706a file are granted to a process if: 707.Pp 708The process's effective user ID is that of the super-user. 709(Note: 710even the super-user cannot execute a non-executable file.) 711.Pp 712The process's effective user ID matches the user ID of the owner 713of the file and the owner permissions allow the access. 714.Pp 715The process's effective user ID does not match the user ID of the 716owner of the file, and either the process's effective 717group ID matches the group ID 718of the file, or the group ID of the file is in 719the process's group access list, 720and the group permissions allow the access. 721.Pp 722Neither the effective user ID nor effective group ID 723and group access list of the process 724match the corresponding user ID and group ID of the file, 725but the permissions for ``other users'' allow access. 726.Pp 727Otherwise, permission is denied. 728.It Sockets and Address Families 729A socket is an endpoint for communication between processes. 730Each socket has queues for sending and receiving data. 731.Pp 732Sockets are typed according to their communications properties. 733These properties include whether messages sent and received 734at a socket require the name of the partner, whether communication 735is reliable, the format used in naming message recipients, etc. 736.Pp 737Each instance of the system supports some 738collection of socket types; consult 739.Xr socket 2 740for more information about the types available and 741their properties. 742.Pp 743Each instance of the system supports some number of sets of 744communications protocols. 745Each protocol set supports addresses 746of a certain format. 747An Address Family is the set of addresses 748for a specific group of protocols. 749Each socket has an address 750chosen from the address family in which the socket was created. 751.El 752.Sh SEE ALSO 753.Xr intro 3 , 754.Xr perror 3 755