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40 .Nd "functions related to user credentials"
47 .Fn crhold "struct ucred *cr"
49 .Fn crfree "struct ucred *cr"
51 .Fn crcopy "struct ucred *dest" "struct ucred *src"
53 .Fn crcopysafe "struct proc *p" "struct ucred *cr"
55 .Fn crdup "struct ucred *cr"
57 .Fn crsetgroups "struct ucred *cr" "int ngrp" "gid_t *groups"
59 .Fn cru2x "struct ucred *cr" "struct xucred *xcr"
63 family of functions is used to manage user credential structures
69 function allocates memory
70 for a new structure, sets its reference count to 1, and
75 function increases the reference count on the credential.
79 function decreases the reference count on the credential.
80 If the count drops to 0, the storage for the structure is freed.
84 function copies the contents of the source (template)
85 credential into the destination template.
88 structure within the destination is referenced
94 function copies the current credential associated with the process
96 into the newly allocated credential
100 must be held and will be dropped and reacquired as needed to allocate
101 group storage space in
106 function allocates memory for a new structure and copies the
110 The actual copying is performed by
119 variables and allocates space as needed.
120 It also truncates the group list to the current maximum number of
122 No other mechanism should be used to modify the
124 array except for updating the primary group via assignment to
139 it ignores fields in the former that are not present in the latter
142 and appropriately sets fields in the latter that are not present in
152 all return a pointer to a
160 structure contains extensible fields.
161 This means that the correct protocol must always be followed to create
162 a fresh and writable credential structure: new credentials must always
163 be derived from existing credentials using
169 In the common case, credentials required for access control decisions are
170 used in a read-only manner.
171 In these circumstances, the thread credential
173 should be used, as it requires no locking to access safely, and remains stable
174 for the duration of the call even in the face of a multi-threaded
175 application changing the process credentials from another thread.
177 During a process credential update, the process lock must be held across
178 check and update, to prevent race conditions.
179 The process credential,
180 .Va td->td_proc->p_ucred ,
181 must be used both for check and update.
182 If a process credential is updated during a system call and checks against
183 the thread credential are to be made later during the same system call,
184 the thread credential must also be refreshed from the process credential
185 so as to prevent use of a stale value.
186 To avoid this scenario, it is recommended that system calls updating the
187 process credential be designed to avoid other authorization functions.
189 If temporarily elevated privileges are required for a thread, the thread
190 credential can by replaced for the duration of an activity, or for
191 the remainder of the system call.
192 However, as a thread credential is often shared, appropriate care should be
193 taken to make sure modifications are made to a writable credential
199 Caution should be exercised when checking authorization for a thread or
200 process perform an operation on another thread or process.
201 As a result of temporary elevation, the target thread credential should
203 be used as the target credential in an access control decision: the process
204 credential associated with the thread,
205 .Va td->td_proc->p_ucred ,
206 should be used instead.
209 accepts a target process, not a target thread, for access control purposes.
213 This manual page was written by
214 .An Chad David Aq Mt davidc@acns.ab.ca .