EXECVE(2) BSD System Calls Manual EXECVE(2)NAMEexecve — execute a file
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int
execve(const char *path, char *const argv[], char *const envp[]);
DESCRIPTIONexecve() transforms the calling process into a new process. The new
process is constructed from an ordinary file, whose name is pointed to by
path, called the new process file. This file is either an executable
object file, or a file of data for an interpreter. An executable object
file consists of an identifying header, followed by pages of data repre‐
senting the initial program (text) and initialized data pages. Addi‐
tional pages may be specified by the header to be initialized with zero
data; see a.out(5).
An interpreter file begins with a line of the form:
#! interpreter [arg]
When an interpreter file is execve()d the system runs the specified
interpreter. If the optional arg is specified, it becomes the first
argument to the interpreter, and the name of the originally execve()d
file becomes the second argument; otherwise, the name of the originally
execve()d file becomes the first argument. The original arguments are
shifted over to become the subsequent arguments. The zeroth argument,
normally the name of the execve()d file, is left unchanged. The inter‐
preter named by interpreter must not itself be an interpreter file. (See
script(7) for a detailed discussion of interpreter file execution.)
The argument argv is a pointer to a null-terminated array of character
pointers to null-terminated character strings. These strings construct
the argument list to be made available to the new process. By custom,
the first element should be the name of the executed program (for exam‐
ple, the last component of path).
The argument envp is also a pointer to a null-terminated array of charac‐
ter pointers to null-terminated strings. A pointer to this array is nor‐
mally stored in the global variable environ. These strings pass informa‐
tion to the new process that is not directly an argument to the command
(see environ(7)).
File descriptors open in the calling process image remain open in the new
process image, except for those for which the close-on-exec flag is set
(see close(2) and fcntl(2)). Descriptors that remain open are unaffected
by execve().
In the case of a new setuid or setgid executable being executed, if file
descriptors 0, 1, or 2 (representing stdin, stdout, and stderr) are cur‐
rently unallocated, these descriptors will be opened to point to some
system file like /dev/null. The intent is to ensure these descriptors
are not unallocated, since many libraries make assumptions about the use
of these 3 file descriptors.
Signals set to be ignored in the calling process are set to be ignored in
the new process. Signals which are set to be caught in the calling
process image are set to default action in the new process image.
Blocked signals remain blocked regardless of changes to the signal
action. The signal stack is reset to be undefined (see sigaction(2) for
more information).
If the set-user-ID mode bit of the new process image file is set (see
chmod(2)), the effective user ID of the new process image is set to the
owner ID of the new process image file. If the set-group-ID mode bit of
the new process image file is set, the effective group ID of the new
process image is set to the group ID of the new process image file. (The
effective group ID is the first element of the group list.) The real
user ID, real group ID and other group IDs of the new process image
remain the same as the calling process image. After any set-user-ID and
set-group-ID processing, the effective user ID is recorded as the saved
set-user-ID, and the effective group ID is recorded as the saved set-
group-ID. These values may be used in changing the effective IDs later
(see setuid(2)).
The new process also inherits the following attributes from the calling
process:
process ID see getpid(2)
parent process ID see getppid(2)
process group ID see getpgrp(2)
access groups see getgroups(2)
working directory see chdir(2)
root directory see chroot(2)
control terminal see termios(4)
resource usages see getrusage(2)
interval timers see getitimer(2)
resource limits see getrlimit(2)
file mode mask see umask(2)
signal mask see sigaction(2), sigprocmask(2)
When a program is executed as a result of an execve() call, it is entered
as follows:
main(argc, argv, envp)
int argc;
char **argv, **envp;
where argc is the number of elements in argv (the “arg count”) and argv
points to the array of character pointers to the arguments themselves.
RETURN VALUES
As the execve() function overlays the current process image with a new
process image the successful call has no process to return to. If
execve() does return to the calling process an error has occurred; the
return value will be -1 and the global variable errno is set to indicate
the error.
ERRORSexecve() will fail and return to the calling process if:
[E2BIG] The number of bytes in the new process's argument list
is larger than the system-imposed limit. The limit in
the system as released is 262144 bytes (NCARGS in
⟨sys/param.h⟩).
[EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the
path prefix, the new process file is not an ordinary
file, its file mode denies execute permission, or it
is on a filesystem mounted with execution disabled
(MNT_NOEXEC in ⟨sys/mount.h⟩).
[EAGAIN] A setuid(7) process has exceeded the current resource
limit for the number of processes it is allowed to run
concurrently.
[EFAULT] The new process file is not as long as indicated by
the size values in its header; or path, argv, or envp
point to an illegal address.
[EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from the file sys‐
tem.
[ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translat‐
ing the pathname.
[ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} charac‐
ters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} char‐
acters.
[ENOENT] The new process file does not exist, or the new
process file is a script starting with #! and the
script interpreter does not exist.
[ENOEXEC] The new process file has the appropriate access per‐
mission, but has an invalid magic number in its
header.
[ENOMEM] The new process requires more virtual memory than is
allowed by the imposed maximum (getrlimit(2)).
[ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
[ETXTBSY] The new process file is a pure procedure (shared text)
file that is currently open for writing or reading by
some process.
SEE ALSO_exit(2), fork(2), execl(3), environ(7), script(7)STANDARDS
The execve() function conforms to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (“POSIX.1”).
HISTORY
The execve() function call first appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
BUGS
If a program is setuid to a non-super-user, but is executed when the real
uid is “root”, then the program has some of the powers of a super-user as
well.
BSD February 24, 2008 BSD
