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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 May 4, 2013 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 a system process, 488.Xr init 8 . 489.It Process Group 490Each active process is a member of a process group that is identified by 491a non-negative integer called the process group ID. 492This is the process 493ID of the group leader. 494This grouping permits the signaling of related 495processes (see 496.Xr termios 4 ) 497and the job control mechanisms of 498.Xr csh 1 . 499.It Session 500A session is a set of one or more process groups. 501A session is created by a successful call to 502.Xr setsid 2 , 503which causes the caller to become the only member of the only process 504group in the new session. 505.It Session leader 506A process that has created a new session by a successful call to 507.Xr setsid 2 , 508is known as a session leader. 509Only a session leader may acquire a terminal as its controlling terminal (see 510.Xr termios 4 ) . 511.It Controlling process 512A session leader with a controlling terminal is a controlling process. 513.It Controlling terminal 514A terminal that is associated with a session is known as the controlling 515terminal for that session and its members. 516.It "Terminal Process Group ID" 517A terminal may be acquired by a session leader as its controlling terminal. 518Once a terminal is associated with a session, any of the process groups 519within the session may be placed into the foreground by setting 520the terminal process group ID to the ID of the process group. 521This facility is used 522to arbitrate between multiple jobs contending for the same terminal; 523(see 524.Xr csh 1 525and 526.Xr tty 4 ) . 527.It "Orphaned Process Group" 528A process group is considered to be 529.Em orphaned 530if it is not under the control of a job control shell. 531More precisely, a process group is orphaned 532when none of its members has a parent process that is in the same session 533as the group, 534but is in a different process group. 535Note that when a process exits, the parent process for its children 536is changed to be 537.Xr init 8 , 538which is in a separate session. 539Not all members of an orphaned process group are necessarily orphaned 540processes (those whose creating process has exited). 541The process group of a session leader is orphaned by definition. 542.It "Real User ID and Real Group ID" 543Each user on the system is identified by a positive integer 544termed the real user ID. 545.Pp 546Each user is also a member of one or more groups. 547One of these groups is distinguished from others and 548used in implementing accounting facilities. 549The positive 550integer corresponding to this distinguished group is termed 551the real group ID. 552.Pp 553All processes have a real user ID and real group ID. 554These are initialized from the equivalent attributes 555of the process that created it. 556.It "Effective User Id, Effective Group Id, and Group Access List" 557Access to system resources is governed by two values: 558the effective user ID, and the group access list. 559The first member of the group access list is also known as the 560effective group ID. 561(In POSIX.1, the group access list is known as the set of supplementary 562group IDs, and it is unspecified whether the effective group ID is 563a member of the list.) 564.Pp 565The effective user ID and effective group ID are initially the 566process's real user ID and real group ID respectively. 567Either 568may be modified through execution of a set-user-ID or set-group-ID 569file (possibly by one its ancestors) (see 570.Xr execve 2 ) . 571By convention, the effective group ID (the first member of the group access 572list) is duplicated, so that the execution of a set-group-ID program 573does not result in the loss of the original (real) group ID. 574.Pp 575The group access list is a set of group IDs 576used only in determining resource accessibility. 577Access checks 578are performed as described below in ``File Access Permissions''. 579.It "Saved Set User ID and Saved Set Group ID" 580When a process executes a new file, the effective user ID is set 581to the owner of the file if the file is set-user-ID, and the effective 582group ID (first element of the group access list) is set to the group 583of the file if the file is set-group-ID. 584The effective user ID of the process is then recorded as the saved set-user-ID, 585and the effective group ID of the process is recorded as the saved set-group-ID. 586These values may be used to regain those values as the effective user 587or group ID after reverting to the real ID (see 588.Xr setuid 2 ) . 589(In POSIX.1, the saved set-user-ID and saved set-group-ID are optional, 590and are used in setuid and setgid, but this does not work as desired 591for the super-user.) 592.It Super-user 593A process is recognized as a 594.Em super-user 595process and is granted special privileges if its effective user ID is 0. 596.It Descriptor 597An integer assigned by the system when a file is referenced 598by 599.Xr open 2 600or 601.Xr dup 2 , 602or when a socket is created by 603.Xr pipe 2 , 604.Xr socket 2 605or 606.Xr socketpair 2 , 607which uniquely identifies an access path to that file or socket from 608a given process or any of its children. 609.It File Name 610Names consisting of up to 611.Brq Dv NAME_MAX 612characters may be used to name 613an ordinary file, special file, or directory. 614.Pp 615These characters may be arbitrary eight-bit values, 616excluding 617.Dv NUL 618.Tn ( ASCII 6190) and the 620.Ql \&/ 621character (slash, 622.Tn ASCII 62347). 624.Pp 625Note that it is generally unwise to use 626.Ql \&* , 627.Ql \&? , 628.Ql \&[ 629or 630.Ql \&] 631as part of 632file names because of the special meaning attached to these characters 633by the shell. 634.It Path Name 635A path name is a 636.Dv NUL Ns -terminated 637character string starting with an 638optional slash 639.Ql \&/ , 640followed by zero or more directory names separated 641by slashes, optionally followed by a file name. 642The total length of a path name must be less than 643.Brq Dv PATH_MAX 644characters. 645(On some systems, this limit may be infinite.) 646.Pp 647If a path name begins with a slash, the path search begins at the 648.Em root 649directory. 650Otherwise, the search begins from the current working directory. 651A slash by itself names the root directory. 652An empty 653pathname refers to the current directory. 654.It Directory 655A directory is a special type of file that contains entries 656that are references to other files. 657Directory entries are called links. 658By convention, a directory 659contains at least two links, 660.Ql .\& 661and 662.Ql \&.. , 663referred to as 664.Em dot 665and 666.Em dot-dot 667respectively. 668Dot refers to the directory itself and 669dot-dot refers to its parent directory. 670.It "Root Directory and Current Working Directory" 671Each process has associated with it a concept of a root directory 672and a current working directory for the purpose of resolving path 673name searches. 674A process's root directory need not be the root 675directory of the root file system. 676.It File Access Permissions 677Every file in the file system has a set of access permissions. 678These permissions are used in determining whether a process 679may perform a requested operation on the file (such as opening 680a file for writing). 681Access permissions are established at the 682time a file is created. 683They may be changed at some later time 684through the 685.Xr chmod 2 686call. 687.Pp 688File access is broken down according to whether a file may be: read, 689written, or executed. 690Directory files use the execute 691permission to control if the directory may be searched. 692.Pp 693File access permissions are interpreted by the system as 694they apply to three different classes of users: the owner 695of the file, those users in the file's group, anyone else. 696Every file has an independent set of access permissions for 697each of these classes. 698When an access check is made, the system 699decides if permission should be granted by checking the access 700information applicable to the caller. 701.Pp 702Read, write, and execute/search permissions on 703a file are granted to a process if: 704.Pp 705The process's effective user ID is that of the super-user. 706(Note: 707even the super-user cannot execute a non-executable file.) 708.Pp 709The process's effective user ID matches the user ID of the owner 710of the file and the owner permissions allow the access. 711.Pp 712The process's effective user ID does not match the user ID of the 713owner of the file, and either the process's effective 714group ID matches the group ID 715of the file, or the group ID of the file is in 716the process's group access list, 717and the group permissions allow the access. 718.Pp 719Neither the effective user ID nor effective group ID 720and group access list of the process 721match the corresponding user ID and group ID of the file, 722but the permissions for ``other users'' allow access. 723.Pp 724Otherwise, permission is denied. 725.It Sockets and Address Families 726A socket is an endpoint for communication between processes. 727Each socket has queues for sending and receiving data. 728.Pp 729Sockets are typed according to their communications properties. 730These properties include whether messages sent and received 731at a socket require the name of the partner, whether communication 732is reliable, the format used in naming message recipients, etc. 733.Pp 734Each instance of the system supports some 735collection of socket types; consult 736.Xr socket 2 737for more information about the types available and 738their properties. 739.Pp 740Each instance of the system supports some number of sets of 741communications protocols. 742Each protocol set supports addresses 743of a certain format. 744An Address Family is the set of addresses 745for a specific group of protocols. 746Each socket has an address 747chosen from the address family in which the socket was created. 748.El 749.Sh SEE ALSO 750.Xr intro 3 , 751.Xr perror 3 752