IPB
>  Man Pages > Linux > Suse Linux 10.1 > Section 2 > access man page

access man page

Section 2 - Suse Linux 10.1 Man Pages

Other operating system man pages available here


Advanced Search

Hopefully, this page is exactly what you are looking for, but if not, you can always find further assistance on Unix/Linux Forum!


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




NAME

       access - check user's permissions for a file


SYNOPSIS

       #include <unistd.h>

       int access(const char *pathname, int mode);


DESCRIPTION

       access()  checks whether the process would be allowed to read, write or
       test for existence of the file (or other file system object) whose name
       is  pathname.   If  pathname is a symbolic link permissions of the file
       referred to by this symbolic link are tested.

       mode is a mask consisting of one or more of R_OK, W_OK, X_OK and  F_OK.

       R_OK,  W_OK  and  X_OK request checking whether the file exists and has
       read, write and execute permissions, respectively.  F_OK just  requests
       checking for the existence of the file.

       The tests depend on the permissions of the directories occurring in the
       path to the file, as given in  pathname,  and  on  the  permissions  of
       directories  and files referred to by symbolic links encountered on the
       way.

       The check is done with the process's real UID and GID, rather than with
       the  effective  IDs  as  is done when actually attempting an operation.
       This is to allow set-user-ID programs to easily determine the  invoking
       user's authority.

       Only  access  bits  are checked, not the file type or contents.  There-
       fore, if a directory is found to be "writable," it probably means  that
       files  can  be created in the directory, and not that the directory can
       be written as a file.  Similarly, a DOS file may be found to  be  "exe-
       cutable," but the execve(2) call will still fail.

       If  the process has appropriate privileges, an implementation may indi-
       cate success for X_OK even if none of the execute file permission  bits
       are set.


RETURN VALUE

       On  success  (all requested permissions granted), zero is returned.  On
       error (at least one bit in mode asked for a permission that is  denied,
       or  some other error occurred), -1 is returned, and errno is set appro-
       priately.


ERRORS

       access() shall fail if:

       EACCES The requested access would be denied to the file or search  per-
              mission  is denied for one of the directories in the path prefix
              of pathname.  (See also path_resolution(2).)

       ELOOP  Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving  pathname.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              pathname is too long.

       ENOENT A directory component in pathname would have been accessible but
              does not exist or was a dangling symbolic link.

       ENOTDIR
              A component used as a directory in pathname is not, in  fact,  a
              directory.

       EROFS  Write  permission  was  requested  for  a  file  on  a read-only
              filesystem.

       access() may fail if:

       EFAULT pathname points outside your accessible address space.

       EINVAL mode was incorrectly specified.

       EIO    An I/O error occurred.

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

       ETXTBSY
              Write access was requested to an executable which is being  exe-
              cuted.


RESTRICTIONS

       access()  returns  an error if any of the access types in the requested
       call fails, even if other types might be successful.

       access() may not work correctly on NFS file systems  with  UID  mapping
       enabled,  because UID mapping is done on the server and hidden from the
       client, which checks permissions.

       Using access() to check if a user is authorized to  e.g.  open  a  file
       before actually doing so using open(2) creates a security hole, because
       the user might exploit the short time  interval  between  checking  and
       opening the file to manipulate it.


CONFORMING TO

       SVID, AT&T, POSIX, X/OPEN, 4.3BSD


SEE ALSO

       chmod(2),  chown(2), open(2), path_resolution(2), setgid(2), setuid(2),
       stat(2)



Linux                             2004-06-23                         ACCESS(2)


Man(1) output converted with man2html and wrapped by fishsponge

This page was generated on Tue Feb 13 02:17:39 GMT 2007

Your favourite pages:

No pages logged yet.
Trying to save cookie...

Top 10 most popular pages:

CPAN man page (4196 hits)
(Suse Linux 10.1)

ssh man page (4111 hits)
(Suse Linux 10.1)

svn man page (2354 hits)
(FreeBSD 6.2)

startproc man page (1695 hits)
(Suse Linux 10.1)

adv_cap_autoneg man page (1445 hits)
(Solaris 10 11_06)

signal man page (1357 hits)
(Suse Linux 10.1)

sqlite3 man page (1329 hits)
(openSUSE 10.2)

netcat man page (1188 hits)
(Suse Linux 10.1)

pprosetup man page (1177 hits)
(Solaris 10 11_06)

lwptut man page (1105 hits)
(Suse Linux 10.1)

Useful Links

Go Back

Visitor Statistics


Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional     Valid CSS!

Partners: Cambridge Plus :: About Pyrenees Mountain Holidays :: Server Room Temperature Monitor :: <Link Available>
Unix Man Pages / Linux Man Pages :: HiFi Forum :: SIP VoIP Phone & Provider Reviews :: UNIX/Linux Forum Archives

More info on advertising on Unix/Linux Forum