ACL(5) File Formats Manual ACL(5)
NAME
acl — Access Control Lists
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes POSIX Access Control Lists, which are used
to define more fine-grained discretionary access rights for files and
directories.
ACL TYPES
Every object can be thought of as having associated with it an ACL that
governs the discretionary access to that object; this ACL is referred
to as an access ACL. In addition, a directory may have an associated
ACL that governs the initial access ACL for objects created within that
directory; this ACL is referred to as a default ACL.
ACL ENTRIES
An ACL consists of a set of ACL entries. An ACL entry specifies the ac-
cess permissions on the associated object for an individual user or a
group of users as a combination of read, write and search/execute per-
missions.
An ACL entry contains an entry tag type, an optional entry tag quali-
fier, and a set of permissions. We use the term qualifier to denote
the entry tag qualifier of an ACL entry.
The qualifier denotes the identifier of a user or a group, for entries
with tag types of ACL_USER or ACL_GROUP, respectively. Entries with tag
types other than ACL_USER or ACL_GROUP have no defined qualifiers.
The following entry tag types are defined:
ACL_USER_OBJ The ACL_USER_OBJ entry denotes access rights for
the file owner.
ACL_USER ACL_USER entries denote access rights for users
identified by the entry's qualifier.
ACL_GROUP_OBJ The ACL_GROUP_OBJ entry denotes access rights for
the file group.
ACL_GROUP ACL_GROUP entries denote access rights for groups
identified by the entry's qualifier.
ACL_MASK The ACL_MASK entry denotes the maximum access
rights that can be granted by entries of type
ACL_USER, ACL_GROUP_OBJ, or ACL_GROUP.
ACL_OTHER The ACL_OTHER entry denotes access rights for
processes that do not match any other entry in
the ACL.
When an access check is performed, the ACL_USER_OBJ and ACL_USER en-
tries are tested against the effective user ID. The effective group ID,
as well as all supplementary group IDs are tested against the
ACL_GROUP_OBJ and ACL_GROUP entries.
VALID ACLs
A valid ACL contains exactly one entry with each of the ACL_USER_OBJ,
ACL_GROUP_OBJ, and ACL_OTHER tag types. Entries with ACL_USER and
ACL_GROUP tag types may appear zero or more times in an ACL. An ACL
that contains entries of ACL_USER or ACL_GROUP tag types must contain
exactly one entry of the ACL_MASK tag type. If an ACL contains no en-
tries of ACL_USER or ACL_GROUP tag types, the ACL_MASK entry is op-
tional.
All user ID qualifiers must be unique among all entries of ACL_USER tag
type, and all group IDs must be unique among all entries of ACL_GROUP
tag type.
The acl_get_file() function returns an ACL with zero ACL entries as
the default ACL of a directory, if the directory is not associated with
a default ACL. The acl_set_file() function also accepts an ACL with
zero ACL entries as a valid default ACL for directories, denoting that
the directory shall not be associated with a default ACL. This is
equivalent to using the acl_delete_def_file() function.
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN ACL ENTRIES AND FILE PERMISSION BITS
The permissions defined by ACLs are a superset of the permissions spec-
ified by the file permission bits.
There is a correspondence between the file owner, group, and other per-
missions and specific ACL entries: the owner permissions correspond to
the permissions of the ACL_USER_OBJ entry. If the ACL has an ACL_MASK
entry, the group permissions correspond to the permissions of the
ACL_MASK entry. Otherwise, if the ACL has no ACL_MASK entry, the group
permissions correspond to the permissions of the ACL_GROUP_OBJ entry.
The other permissions correspond to the permissions of the ACL_OTHER
entry.
The file owner, group, and other permissions always match the permis-
sions of the corresponding ACL entry. Modification of the file permis-
sion bits results in the modification of the associated ACL entries,
and modification of these ACL entries results in the modification of
the file permission bits.
OBJECT CREATION AND DEFAULT ACLs
The access ACL of a file object is initialized when the object is cre-
ated with any of the creat(), mkdir(), mknod(), mkfifo(), or open()
functions. If a default ACL is associated with a directory, the mode
parameter to the functions creating file objects and the default ACL of
the directory are used to determine the ACL of the new object:
1. The new object inherits the default ACL of the containing direc-
tory as its access ACL.
2. The access ACL entries corresponding to the file permission bits
are modified so that they contain no permissions that are not con-
tained in the permissions specified by the mode parameter.
If no default ACL is associated with a directory, the mode parameter to
the functions creating file objects and the file creation mask (see
umask(2)) are used to determine the ACL of the new object:
1. The new object is assigned an access ACL containing entries of tag
types ACL_USER_OBJ, ACL_GROUP_OBJ, and ACL_OTHER. The permissions
of these entries are set to the permissions specified by the file
creation mask.
2. The access ACL entries corresponding to the file permission bits
are modified so that they contain no permissions that are not con-
tained in the permissions specified by the mode parameter.
ACCESS CHECK ALGORITHM
A process may request read, write, or execute/search access to a file
object protected by an ACL. The access check algorithm determines
whether access to the object will be granted.
1. If the effective user ID of the process matches the user ID of the
file object owner, then
if the ACL_USER_OBJ entry contains the requested permis-
sions, access is granted,
else access is denied.
2. else if the effective user ID of the process matches the qualifier
of any entry of type ACL_USER, then
if the matching ACL_USER entry and the ACL_MASK entry con-
tain the requested permissions, access is granted,
else access is denied.
3. else if the effective group ID or any of the supplementary group
IDs of the process match the file group or the qualifier of any
entry of type ACL_GROUP, then
if the ACL contains an ACL_MASK entry, then
if the ACL_MASK entry and any of the matching
ACL_GROUP_OBJ or ACL_GROUP entries contain the re-
quested permissions, access is granted,
else access is denied.
else (note that there can be no ACL_GROUP entries without an
ACL_MASK entry)
if the ACL_GROUP_OBJ entry contains the requested per-
missions, access is granted,
else access is denied.
4. else if the ACL_OTHER entry contains the requested permissions,
access is granted.
5. else access is denied.
ACL TEXT FORMS
A long and a short text form for representing ACLs is defined. In both
forms, ACL entries are represented as three colon separated fields: an
ACL entry tag type, an ACL entry qualifier, and the discretionary ac-
cess permissions. The first field contains one of the following entry
tag type keywords:
user A user ACL entry specifies the access granted to either
the file owner (entry tag type ACL_USER_OBJ) or a speci-
fied user (entry tag type ACL_USER).
group A group ACL entry specifies the access granted to either
the file group (entry tag type ACL_GROUP_OBJ) or a speci-
fied group (entry tag type ACL_GROUP).
mask A mask ACL entry specifies the maximum access which can
be granted by any ACL entry except the user entry for the
file owner and the other entry (entry tag type ACL_MASK).
other An other ACL entry specifies the access granted to any
process that does not match any user or group ACL entries
(entry tag type ACL_OTHER).
The second field contains the user or group identifier of the user or
group associated with the ACL entry for entries of entry tag type
ACL_USER or ACL_GROUP, and is empty for all other entries. A user iden-
tifier can be a user name or a user ID number in decimal form. A group
identifier can be a group name or a group ID number in decimal form.
The third field contains the discretionary access permissions. The
read, write and search/execute permissions are represented by the r, w,
and x characters, in this order. Each of these characters is replaced
by the - character to denote that a permission is absent in the ACL en-
try. When converting from the text form to the internal representa-
tion, permissions that are absent need not be specified.
White space is permitted at the beginning and end of each ACL entry,
and immediately before and after a field separator (the colon charac-
ter).
LONG TEXT FORM
The long text form contains one ACL entry per line. In addition, a num-
ber sign (#) may start a comment that extends until the end of the
line. If an ACL_USER, ACL_GROUP_OBJ or ACL_GROUP ACL entry contains
permissions that are not also contained in the ACL_MASK entry, the en-
try is followed by a number sign, the string “effective:”, and the ef-
fective access permissions defined by that entry. This is an example of
the long text form:
user::rw-
user:lisa:rw- #effective:r--
group::r--
group:toolies:rw- #effective:r--
mask::r--
other::r--
SHORT TEXT FORM
The short text form is a sequence of ACL entries separated by commas,
and is used for input. Comments are not supported. Entry tag type key-
words may either appear in their full unabbreviated form, or in their
single letter abbreviated form. The abbreviation for user is u, the ab-
breviation for group is g, the abbreviation for mask is m, and the ab-
breviation for other is o. The permissions may contain at most one
each of the following characters in any order: r, w, x. These are ex-
amples of the short text form:
u::rw-,u:lisa:rw-,g::r--,g:toolies:rw-,m::r--,o::r--
g:toolies:rw,u:lisa:rw,u::wr,g::r,o::r,m::r
RATIONALE
IEEE 1003.1e draft 17 defines Access Control Lists that include entries
of tag type ACL_MASK, and defines a mapping between file permission
bits that is not constant. The standard working group defined this rel-
atively complex interface in order to ensure that applications that are
compliant with IEEE 1003.1 (“POSIX.1”) will still function as expected
on systems with ACLs. The IEEE 1003.1e draft 17 contains the rationale
for choosing this interface in section B.23.
CHANGES TO THE FILE UTILITIES
On a system that supports ACLs, the file utilities ls(1), cp(1), and
mv(1) change their behavior in the following way:
• For files that have a default ACL or an access ACL that contains
more than the three required ACL entries, the ls(1) utility in the
long form produced by ls -l displays a plus sign (+) after the per-
mission string.
• If the -p flag is specified, the cp(1) utility also preserves ACLs.
If this is not possible, a warning is produced.
• The mv(1) utility always preserves ACLs. If this is not possible,
a warning is produced.
The effect of the chmod(1) utility, and of the chmod(2) system call, on
the access ACL is described in “CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN ACL ENTRIES AND
FILE PERMISSION BITS”.
STANDARDS
The IEEE 1003.1e draft 17 (“POSIX.1e”) document describes several secu-
rity extensions to the IEEE 1003.1 standard. While the work on 1003.1e
has been abandoned, many UNIX style systems implement parts of POSIX.1e
draft 17, or of earlier drafts.
Linux Access Control Lists implement the full set of functions and
utilities defined for Access Control Lists in POSIX.1e, and several ex-
tensions. The implementation is fully compliant with POSIX.1e draft
17; extensions are marked as such. The Access Control List manipula-
tion functions are defined in the ACL library (libacl, -lacl). The
POSIX compliant interfaces are declared in the <sys/acl.h> header.
Linux-specific extensions to these functions are declared in the
<acl/libacl.h> header.
NOTES
DENIED PERMISSIONS AND LINUX USER NAMESPACES
While ACLs can be used to deny processes permissions based on the
groups they are in, this is considered bad practice. Privileged
helpers such as newuidmap(1) can give unprivileged processes access to
the setgroups(2) system call, which allows them to drop supplementary
group membership and render restrictions based on that membership inef-
fective. For further details, see user_namespaces(7).
SEE ALSO
chmod(1), creat(2), getfacl(1), ls(1), mkdir(2), mkfifo(2), mknod(2),
mount(8), open(2), setfacl(1), stat(2), umask(1)
POSIX 1003.1e DRAFT 17
https://wt.tuxomania.net/publications/posix.1e/download.html
POSIX 1003.1e FUNCTIONS BY CATEGORY
ACL storage management
acl_dup(3), acl_free(3), acl_init(3)
ACL entry manipulation
acl_copy_entry(3), acl_create_entry(3), acl_delete_entry(3),
acl_get_entry(3), acl_valid(3)
acl_add_perm(3), acl_calc_mask(3), acl_clear_perms(3),
acl_delete_perm(3), acl_get_permset(3), acl_set_permset(3)
acl_get_qualifier(3), acl_get_tag_type(3), acl_set_qualifier(3),
acl_set_tag_type(3)
ACL manipulation on an object
acl_delete_def_file(3), acl_get_fd(3), acl_get_file(3),
acl_set_fd(3), acl_set_file(3)
ACL format translation
acl_copy_entry(3), acl_copy_ext(3), acl_from_text(3),
acl_to_text(3), acl_size(3)
POSIX 1003.1e FUNCTIONS BY AVAILABILITY
The first group of functions is supported on most systems with POSIX-
like access control lists, while the second group is supported on fewer
systems. For applications that will be ported the second group is best
avoided.
acl_delete_def_file(3), acl_dup(3), acl_free(3), acl_from_text(3),
acl_get_fd(3), acl_get_file(3), acl_init(3), acl_set_fd(3),
acl_set_file(3), acl_to_text(3), acl_valid(3)
acl_add_perm(3), acl_calc_mask(3), acl_clear_perms(3),
acl_copy_entry(3), acl_copy_ext(3), acl_copy_int(3),
acl_create_entry(3), acl_delete_entry(3), acl_delete_perm(3),
acl_get_entry(3), acl_get_permset(3), acl_get_qualifier(3),
acl_get_tag_type(3), acl_set_permset(3), acl_set_qualifier(3),
acl_set_tag_type(3), acl_size(3)
LINUX EXTENSIONS
These non-portable extensions are available on Linux systems.
acl_check(3), acl_cmp(3), acl_entries(3), acl_equiv_mode(3),
acl_error(3), acl_extended_fd(3), acl_extended_file(3),
acl_extended_file_nofollow(3), acl_from_mode(3), acl_get_perm(3),
acl_to_any_text(3)
AUTHOR
Andreas Gruenbacher, <andreas.gruenbacher@gmail.com>
Linux ACL March 23, 2002 ACL(5)
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