NAME

       setfsgid - set group identity used for filesystem checks

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/fsuid.h>

       int setfsgid(uid_t fsgid);

DESCRIPTION

       The system call setfsgid() changes the value of the caller's filesystem group ID—the group
       ID that the Linux kernel uses to check for all accesses to the filesystem.  Normally,  the
       value  of  the  filesystem  group  ID will shadow the value of the effective group ID.  In
       fact, whenever the effective group ID is changed, the filesystem group  ID  will  also  be
       changed to the new value of the effective group ID.

       Explicit calls to setfsuid(2) and setfsgid() are usually used only by programs such as the
       Linux NFS server that need to change what user and  group  ID  is  used  for  file  access
       without  a corresponding change in the real and effective user and group IDs.  A change in
       the normal user IDs for a program such as the NFS server  is  a  security  hole  that  can
       expose it to unwanted signals.  (But see below.)

       setfsgid() will succeed only if the caller is the superuser or if fsgid matches either the
       caller's real group ID, effective group ID, saved set-group-ID, or current the  filesystem
       user ID.

RETURN VALUE

       On  both  success  and  failure, this call returns the previous filesystem group ID of the
       caller.

VERSIONS

       This system call is present in Linux since version 1.2.

CONFORMING TO

       setfsgid() is Linux-specific and should not be used in programs intended to be portable.

NOTES

       When glibc determines that the argument is not a valid group ID, it will return -1 and set
       errno to EINVAL without attempting the system call.

       Note  that at the time this system call was introduced, a process could send a signal to a
       process with the same effective user ID.  Today signal  permission  handling  is  slightly
       different.   See  setfsuid(2)  for  a  discussion  of  why the use of both setfsuid(2) and
       setfsgid() is nowadays unneeded.

       The original Linux setfsgid() system call supported only 16-bit group IDs.   Subsequently,
       Linux 2.4 added setfsgid32() supporting 32-bit IDs.  The glibc setfsgid() wrapper function
       transparently deals with the variation across kernel versions.

BUGS

       No error indications of any kind are returned to  the  caller,  and  the  fact  that  both
       successful  and  unsuccessful  calls return the same value makes it impossible to directly
       determine whether the call succeeded or  failed.   Instead,  the  caller  must  resort  to
       looking  at  the  return value from a further call such as setfsgid(-1) (which will always
       fail), in order to determine if a preceding call  to  setfsgid()  changed  the  filesystem
       group  ID.   At  the very least, EPERM should be returned when the call fails (because the
       caller lacks the CAP_SETGID capability).

SEE ALSO

       kill(2), setfsuid(2), capabilities(7), credentials(7)

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 4.04 of the Linux man-pages project.  A  description  of  the
       project,  information  about  reporting  bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
       found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.