NAME

       persistent-keyring - per-user persistent keyring

DESCRIPTION

       The persistent keyring is a keyring used to anchor keys on behalf of a user.  Each UID the
       kernel deals with has its own persistent keyring that is shared between all threads  owned
       by   that   UID.    The   persistent   keyring  has  a  name  (description)  of  the  form
       _persistent.<UID> where <UID> is the user ID of the corresponding user.

       The persistent  keyring  may  not  be  accessed  directly,  even  by  processes  with  the
       appropriate  UID.  Instead, it must first be linked to one of a process's keyrings, before
       that keyring can access the persistent keyring by virtue of its possessor  permits.   This
       linking is done with the keyctl_get_persistent(3) function.

       If a persistent keyring does not exist when it is accessed by the keyctl_get_persistent(3)
       operation, it will be automatically created.

       Each time the  keyctl_get_persistent(3)  operation  is  performed,  the  persistent  key's
       expiration timer is reset to the value in:

           /proc/sys/kernel/keys/persistent_keyring_expiry

       Should  the  timeout  be reached, the persistent keyring will be removed and everything it
       pins can then be garbage collected.  The key will then be re-created on a subsequent  call
       to keyctl_get_persistent(3).

       The  persistent keyring is not directly searched by request_key(2); it is searched only if
       it is linked into one of the keyrings that is searched by request_key(2).

       The persistent keyring is independent  of  clone(2),  fork(2),  vfork(2),  execve(2),  and
       _exit(2).   It  persists until its expiration timer triggers, at which point it is garbage
       collected.  This allows the persistent keyring to  carry  keys  beyond  the  life  of  the
       kernel's  record  of  the  corresponding  UID  (the  destruction  of  which results in the
       destruction of the  user-keyring(7)  and  the  user-session-keyring(7)).   The  persistent
       keyring can thus be used to hold authentication tokens for processes that run without user
       interaction, such as programs started by cron(8).

       The persistent keyring is used to store UID-specific objects that themselves have  limited
       lifetimes (e.g., kerberos tokens).  If those tokens cease to be used (i.e., the persistent
       keyring is not accessed), then the timeout of the  persistent  keyring  ensures  that  the
       corresponding objects are automatically discarded.

   Special operations
       The  keyutils  library  provides  the  keyctl_get_persistent(3)  function for manipulating
       persistent   keyrings.    (This   function   is   an   interface    to    the    keyctl(2)
       KEYCTL_GET_PERSISTENT  operation.)   This  operation  allows the calling thread to get the
       persistent keyring corresponding to its own UID or,  if  the  thread  has  the  CAP_SETUID
       capability,  the  persistent  keyring  corresponding  to  some  other UID in the same user
       namespace.

NOTES

       Each user namespace owns a keyring called .persistent_register that contains links to  all
       of  the  persistent keys in that namespace.  (The .persistent_register keyring can be seen
       when reading the contents of the /proc/keys file for the UID 0  in  the  namespace.)   The
       keyctl_get_persistent(3)   operation   looks   for   a   key  with  a  name  of  the  form
       _persistent.<UID> in that keyring, creates the key if it does not exist, and links it into
       the keyring.

SEE ALSO

       keyctl(1), keyctl(3), keyctl_get_persistent(3), keyrings(7), process-keyring(7),
       session-keyring(7), thread-keyring(7), user-keyring(7), user-session-keyring(7)

COLOPHON

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       project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
       found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.