Name

chmod, fchmod — change permissions of a file

Synopsis

#include <sys/stat.h>
int chmod( const char *  path,
  mode_t   mode);
int fchmod( int   fd,
  mode_t   mode);
[Note] Note
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
fchmod():
_BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500

DESCRIPTION

The mode of the file given by path or referenced by fd is changed.

Modes are specified by or'ing the following:

S_ISUID

04000 set user ID on execution

S_ISGID

02000 set group ID on execution

S_ISVTX

01000 sticky bit

S_IRUSR

00400 read by owner

S_IWUSR

00200 write by owner

S_IXUSR

00100 execute/search by owner

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 error to be returned.

As a security measure, depending on the file system, 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 file systems, 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 file systems, restricting the permissions will immediately influence already open files, because the access control is done on the server, but open files are maintained by the client. Widening the permissions may be delayed for other clients if attribute caching is enabled on them.

RETURN VALUE

On success, zero is returned. On error, −1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

Depending on the file system, other errors 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

path points outside your accessible address space.

EIO

An I/O error occurred.

ELOOP

Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.

ENAMETOOLONG

path 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 file system.

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.

CONFORMING TO

4.4BSD, SVr4, POSIX.1-2001.

SEE ALSO

chown(2), execve(2), fchmodat(2), open(2), stat(2), path_resolution(7)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 2.79 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.


Copyright (c) 1992 Drew Eckhardt (drewcs.colorado.edu), March 28, 1992

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
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Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
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Modified by Michael Haardt <michaelmoria.de>
Modified 1993-07-21 by Rik Faith <faithcs.unc.edu>
Modified 1997-01-12 by Michael Haardt
  <michaelcantor.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>: NFS details
Modified 2004-06-23 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com>