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CAPSICUM(4) Kernel Interfaces Manual CAPSICUM(4) NAME Capsicum -- lightweight OS capability and sandbox framework SYNOPSIS options CAPABILITY_MODE options CAPABILITIES DESCRIPTION Capsicum is a lightweight OS capability and sandbox framework implementing a hybrid capability system model. Capsicum is designed to blend capabili- ties with UNIX. This approach achieves many of the benefits of least-priv- ilege operation, while preserving existing UNIX APIs and performance, and presents application authors with an adoption path for capability-oriented design. Capabilities are unforgeable tokens of authority that can be delegated and must be presented to perform an action. Capsicum makes file descriptors into capabilities. Capsicum can be used for application and library compartmentalisation, the decomposition of larger bodies of software into isolated (sandboxed) compo- nents in order to implement security policies and limit the impact of soft- ware vulnerabilities. Capsicum provides two core kernel primitives: capability mode A process mode, entered by invoking cap_enter(2), in which access to global OS namespaces (such as the file system and PID name- spaces) is restricted; only explicitly delegated rights, referenced by memory mappings or file descriptors, may be used. Once set, the flag is inherited by future children processes, and may not be cleared. Access to system calls in capability mode is restricted: some sys- tem calls requiring global namespace access are unavailable, while others are constrained. For instance, sysctl(2) can be used to query process-local information such as address space layout, but also to monitor a system's network connections. sysctl(2) is con- strained by explicitly marking ~~60 of over 15000 parameters as permitted in capability mode; all others are denied. The system calls which require constraints are sysctl(2), shm_open(2) (which is permitted to create anonymous memory objects but not named ones) and the openat(2) family of system calls. The openat(2) calls already accept a file descriptor argument as the directory to perform the open(2), rename(2), etc. relative to; in capability mode the openat(2) family of system calls are con- strained so that they can only operate on objects aundera the pro- vided file descriptor. capabilities Limit operations that can be called on file descriptors. For exam- ple, a file descriptor returned by open(2) may be refined using cap_rights_limit(2) so that only read(2) and write(2) can be called, but not fchmod(2). The complete list of the capability rights can be found in the rights(4) manual page. In some cases, Capsicum requires use of alternatives to traditional POSIX APIs in order to name objects using capabilities rather than global name- spaces: process descriptors File descriptors representing processes, allowing parent processes to manage child processes without requiring access to the PID name- space; described in greater detail in procdesc(4). anonymous shared memory An extension to the POSIX shared memory API to support anonymous swap objects associated with file descriptors; described in greater detail in shm_open(2). In some cases, Capsicum limits the valid values of some parameters to tra- ditional APIs in order to restrict access to global namespaces: process IDs Processes can only act upon their own process ID with syscalls such as cpuset_setaffinity(2). FreeBSD provides some additional functionality to support application sand- boxing that is not part of Capsicum itself: capsicum_helpers(3) A set of a inline functions which simplify modifying programs to use Capsicum. libcasper(3) A library that provides services for sandboxed applications, such as operating on files specified on a command line or establishing network connections. SEE ALSO cap_enter(2), cap_fcntls_limit(2), cap_getmode(2), cap_ioctls_limit(2), cap_rights_limit(2), fchmod(2), open(2), pdfork(2), pdgetpid(2), pdkill(2), pdwait4(2), read(2), shm_open(2), write(2), cap_rights_get(3), cap- sicum_helpers(3), libcasper(3), procdesc(4) HISTORY Capsicum first appeared in FreeBSD 9.0, and was developed at the University of Cambridge. AUTHORS Capsicum was developed by Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org> and Jonathan Anderson <jonathan@FreeBSD.org> at the University of Cambridge, and Ben Laurie <benl@FreeBSD.org> and Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.org> at Google, Inc., and Pawel Jakub Dawidek <pawel@dawidek.net>. Portions of this manual page are drawn from Robert N. M. Watson, Jonathan Anderson, Ben Laurie, and Kris Kennaway, "Capsicum: practical capabilities for UNIX", USENIX Security Symposium, August 2010, DOI: 10.5555/1929820.1929824. FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly January 23, 2026 CAPSICUM(4)
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