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ACCESS(2) BSD System Calls Manual ACCESS(2) NAME access, eaccess -- check accessibility of a file LIBRARY Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS #include <unistd.h> int access(const char *path, int mode); int eaccess(const char *path, int mode); DESCRIPTION The access() and eaccess() system calls check the accessibility of the file named by the path argument for the access permissions indicated by the mode argument. The value of mode is either the bitwise-inclusive OR of the access permissions to be checked (R_OK for read permission, W_OK for write permission, and X_OK for execute/search permission), or the ex- istence test (F_OK). For additional information, see the File Access Permission section of intro(2). The eaccess() system call uses the effective user ID and the group access list to authorize the request; the access() system call uses the real user ID in place of the effective user ID, the real group ID in place of the effective group ID, and the rest of the group access list. Even if a process's real or effective user has appropriate privileges and indicates success for X_OK, the file may not actually have execute per- mission bits set. Likewise for R_OK and W_OK. RETURN VALUES Upon successful completion, the value 0 is returned; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS Access to the file is denied if: [ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. [ENOENT] The named file does not exist. [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translat- ing the pathname. [EROFS] Write access is requested for a file on a read-only file system. [ETXTBSY] Write access is requested for a pure procedure (shared text) file presently being executed. [EACCES] Permission bits of the file mode do not permit the re- quested access, or search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix. [EFAULT] The path argument points outside the process's allo- cated address space. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS The access() system call is a potential security hole due to race condi- tions and should never be used. Set-user-ID and set-group-ID applica- tions should restore the effective user or group ID, and perform actions directly rather than use access() to simulate access checks for the real user or group ID. The eaccess() system call likewise may be subject to races if used inappropriately. access() remains useful for providing clues to users as to whether opera- tions make sense for particular filesystem objects (e.g. 'delete' menu item only highlighted in a writable folder ... avoiding interpretation of the st_mode bits that the application might not understand -- e.g. in the case of AFS). It also allows a cheaper file existence test than stat(2). SEE ALSO chmod(2), intro(2), stat(2) STANDARDS The access() system call is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 ("POSIX.1"). HISTORY The access() function appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX. BSD February 11, 2008 BSD
NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUES | ERRORS | SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS | SEE ALSO | STANDARDS | HISTORY
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