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CHMOD(2)		   Linux Programmer's Manual		      CHMOD(2)

NAME
       chmod, fchmod, fchmodat - change	permissions of a file

SYNOPSIS
       #include	<sys/stat.h>

       int chmod(const char *pathname, mode_t mode);
       int fchmod(int fd, mode_t mode);

       #include	<fcntl.h>	    /* Definition of AT_* constants */
       #include	<sys/stat.h>

       int fchmodat(int	dirfd, const char *pathname, mode_t mode, int flags);

   Feature Test	Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       fchmod():
	   _BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE	>= 500 ||
	   _XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED
	   || /* Since glibc 2.12: */ _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L

       fchmodat():
	   Since glibc 2.10:
	       _XOPEN_SOURCE >=	700 || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
	   Before glibc	2.10:
	       _ATFILE_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION
       The chmod() and fchmod()	system calls change the	permissions of a file.
       They differ only	in how the file	is specified:

       * chmod()  changes the permissions of the file specified	whose pathname
	 is given in pathname, which is	dereferenced if	it is a	symbolic link.

       * fchmod() changes the permissions of the file referred to by the  open
	 file descriptor fd.

       The  new	 file  permissions  are	specified in mode, which is a bit mask
       created by ORing	together zero or more of the following:

       S_ISUID	(04000)	 set-user-ID (set process effective  user  ID  on  ex-
			 ecve(2))

       S_ISGID	(02000)	 set-group-ID  (set  process effective group ID	on ex-
			 ecve(2); mandatory locking, as	described in fcntl(2);
			 take a	new file's group from parent directory,	as de-
			 scribed in chown(2) and mkdir(2))

       S_ISVTX	(01000)	 sticky	bit (restricted	deletion flag, as described in
			 unlink(2))

       S_IRUSR	(00400)	 read by owner

       S_IWUSR	(00200)	 write by owner

       S_IXUSR	(00100)	 execute/search	 by owner ("search" applies for	direc-
			 tories, and means that	entries	within	the  directory
			 can be	accessed)

       S_IRGRP	(00040)	 read by group

       S_IWGRP	(00020)	 write by group

       S_IXGRP	(00010)	 execute/search	by group

       S_IROTH	(00004)	 read by others

       S_IWOTH	(00002)	 write by others

       S_IXOTH	(00001)	 execute/search	by others

       The  effective  UID  of the calling process must	match the owner	of the
       file, or	the process must  be  privileged  (Linux:  it  must  have  the
       CAP_FOWNER capability).

       If  the	calling	 process  is  not privileged (Linux: does not have the
       CAP_FSETID capability), and the group of	the file does  not  match  the
       effective  group	 ID  of	 the process or	one of its supplementary group
       IDs, the	S_ISGID	bit will be turned off,	but this will not cause	an er-
       ror to be returned.

       As a security measure, depending	on the filesystem, the set-user-ID and
       set-group-ID execution bits may be turned off if	 a  file  is  written.
       (On  Linux  this	 occurs	 if  the  writing  process  does  not have the
       CAP_FSETID capability.)	On some	filesystems, only  the	superuser  can
       set  the	 sticky	bit, which may have a special meaning.	For the	sticky
       bit, and	for set-user-ID	and  set-group-ID  bits	 on  directories,  see
       stat(2).

       On NFS filesystems, restricting the permissions will immediately	influ-
       ence already open files,	because	the access  control  is	 done  on  the
       server, but open	files are maintained by	the client.  Widening the per-
       missions	may be delayed for other clients if attribute caching  is  en-
       abled on	them.

   fchmodat()
       The fchmodat() system call operates in exactly the same way as chmod(),
       except for the differences described here.

       If the pathname given in	pathname is relative, then it  is  interpreted
       relative	 to  the  directory  referred  to by the file descriptor dirfd
       (rather than relative to	the current working directory of  the  calling
       process,	as is done by chmod() for a relative pathname).

       If  pathname  is	relative and dirfd is the special value	AT_FDCWD, then
       pathname	is interpreted relative	to the current	working	 directory  of
       the calling process (like chmod()).

       If pathname is absolute,	then dirfd is ignored.

       flags can either	be 0, or include the following flag:

       AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW
	      If  pathname  is a symbolic link,	do not dereference it: instead
	      operate on the link itself.  This	flag is	not  currently	imple-
	      mented.

       See openat(2) for an explanation	of the need for	fchmodat().

RETURN VALUE
       On  success,  zero is returned.	On error, -1 is	returned, and errno is
       set appropriately.

ERRORS
       Depending on the	filesystem, errors other than those listed  below  can
       be returned.

       The more	general	errors for chmod() are listed below:

       EACCES Search  permission  is denied on a component of the path prefix.
	      (See also	path_resolution(7).)

       EFAULT pathname points outside your accessible address space.

       EIO    An I/O error occurred.

       ELOOP  Too many symbolic	links were encountered in resolving pathname.

       ENAMETOOLONG
	      pathname is too long.

       ENOENT The file does not	exist.

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

       ENOTDIR
	      A	component of the path prefix is	not a directory.

       EPERM  The effective UID	does not match the owner of the	file, and  the
	      process	is  not	 privileged  (Linux:  it  does	not  have  the
	      CAP_FOWNER capability).

       EROFS  The named	file resides on	a read-only filesystem.

       The general errors for fchmod() are listed below:

       EBADF  The file descriptor fd is	not valid.

       EIO    See above.

       EPERM  See above.

       EROFS  See above.

       The same	errors that occur for chmod() can also occur  for  fchmodat().
       The following additional	errors can occur for fchmodat():

       EBADF  dirfd is not a valid file	descriptor.

       EINVAL Invalid flag specified in	flags.

       ENOTDIR
	      pathname is relative and dirfd is	a file descriptor referring to
	      a	file other than	a directory.

       ENOTSUP
	      flags specified AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW, which is not	supported.

VERSIONS
       fchmodat() was added to Linux in	kernel	2.6.16;	 library  support  was
       added to	glibc in version 2.4.

CONFORMING TO
       chmod(),	fchmod(): 4.4BSD, SVr4,	POSIX.1-2001i, POSIX.1-2008.

       fchmodat(): POSIX.1-2008.

NOTES
   C library/kernel ABI	differences
       The  GNU	 C  library  fchmodat()	wrapper	function implements the	POSIX-
       specified interface described in	this  page.   This  interface  differs
       from  the underlying Linux system call, which does not have a flags ar-
       gument.

   Glibc notes
       On older	kernels	where fchmodat() is  unavailable,  the	glibc  wrapper
       function	falls back to the use of chmod().  When	pathname is a relative
       pathname, glibc constructs a pathname based on  the  symbolic  link  in
       /proc/self/fd that corresponds to the dirfd argument.

SEE ALSO
       chown(2), execve(2), open(2), stat(2), path_resolution(7), symlink(7)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.74 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, information about reporting bugs,  and  the
       latest	  version     of     this    page,    can    be	   found    at
       http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux				  2014-08-19			      CHMOD(2)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | VERSIONS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

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