man(1) Manual page archive


     CAP(3)                                                     CAP(3)

     NAME
          cap - capability for changing user name

     SYNOPSIS
          bind #ยค dir

          dir/caphash
          dir/capuse

     DESCRIPTION
          Cap allows a process owned by the host owner (see eve(10.2))
          to give another process on the same machine a capability to
          set its user name to a specified user.  The capability is a
          string of the form:

               [ fromuser@ ] touser@key

          where fromuser is a process's current user name, touser is
          its new user name, and key is a string of random characters
          (eg, produced by security-random(2)).

          Caphash is a write-only file that can only be opened by the
          host owner.  A process enables the use of a capability by
          writing the keyed hash of fromuser@touser to caphash.  The
          hash is computed using Keyring->hmac_sha1 as follows:

               kr := load Keyring Keyring->PATH;
               IPint: import kr;
               users := sys->sprint("%s@%s", fromuser, touser);
               cap := sys->sprint("%s@%s", users, key);
               digest := array[Keyring->SHA1dlen] of byte;
               ausers := array of byte users;
               kr->hmac_sha1(ausers, len ausers, array of byte key, digest, nil);
               if(sys->write(caphashfd, digest, len digest) < 0)
                    error();

          The capability (eg, cap in the example) can then be passed
          to another process.

          Capuse is a write-only file that can be opened by any pro-
          cess.  It can then write a capability string to change its
          user name, provided that capability has previously been
          enabled by the host owner via caphash, and if the capability
          included a fromuser, the writing process currently has that
          user name.  After a successful write, the writing process
          will be owned by touser. Any capability can be used at most
          once.

          A capability enabled by caphash has a limited lifetime, on
          the order of 30 seconds.  Caphash can be removed by the host

     CAP(3)                                                     CAP(3)

          owner to prevent its further use.

     SOURCE
          /emu/port/devcap.c
          /os/port/devcap.c

     SEE ALSO
          keyring-sha1(2), cons(3), intro(5), eve(10.2)

     DIAGNOSTICS
          A write to capuse without a previous write to caphash sets
          the error string to ``invalid capability''.