execve

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.\" Copyright (c) 1992 Drew Eckhardt (drew@cs.colorado.edu), March 28, 1992
.\" and Copyright (c) 2006 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
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.\" Modified by Michael Haardt <michael@moria.de>
.\" Modified 1993-07-21 by Rik Faith <faith@cs.unc.edu>
.\" Modified 1994-08-21 by Michael Chastain <mec@shell.portal.com>:
.\" Modified 1997-01-31 by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
.\" Modified 1999-11-12 by Urs Thuermann <urs@isnogud.escape.de>
.\" Modified 2004-06-23 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
.\" 2006-09-04 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
.\"     Added list of process attributes that are not preserved on exec().
.\" 2007-09-14 Ollie Wild <aaw@google.com>, mtk
.\"     Add text describing limits on command-line arguments + environment
.\"
.TH EXECVE 2 2010-01-06 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
execve \- execute program
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B #include <unistd.h>
.sp
.BI "int execve(const char *" filename ", char *const " argv "[], "
.br
.BI "           char *const " envp []);
.SH DESCRIPTION
.BR execve ()
executes the program pointed to by \fIfilename\fP.
\fIfilename\fP must be either a binary executable, or a script
starting with a line of the form:

.in +4n
.nf
\fB#!\fP \fIinterpreter \fP[optional-arg]
.fi
.in

For details of the latter case, see "Interpreter scripts" below.

\fIargv\fP is an array of argument strings passed to the new program.
\fIenvp\fP is an array of strings, conventionally of the form
\fBkey=value\fP, which are passed as environment to the new program.
Both \fIargv\fP and \fIenvp\fP must be terminated by a null pointer.
The argument vector and environment can be accessed by the
called program's main function, when it is defined as:

.in +4n
.nf
int main(int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[])
.fi
.in

.BR execve ()
does not return on success, and the text, data, bss, and
stack of the calling process are overwritten by that of the program
loaded.

If the current program is being ptraced, a \fBSIGTRAP\fP is sent to it
after a successful
.BR execve ().

If the set-user-ID bit is set on the program file pointed to by
\fIfilename\fP,
and the underlying file system is not mounted
.I nosuid
(the
.B MS_NOSUID
flag for
.BR mount (2)),
and the calling process is not being ptraced,
then the effective user ID of the calling process is changed
to that of the owner of the program file.
Similarly, when the set-group-ID
bit of the program file is set the effective group ID of the calling
process is set to the group of the program file.

The effective user ID of the process is copied to the saved set-user-ID;
similarly, the effective group ID is copied to the saved set-group-ID.
This copying takes place after any effective ID changes that occur
because of the set-user-ID and set-group-ID permission bits.

If the executable is an a.out dynamically linked
binary executable containing
shared-library stubs, the Linux dynamic linker
.BR ld.so (8)
is called at the start of execution to bring
needed shared libraries into memory
and link the executable with them.

If the executable is a dynamically linked ELF executable, the
interpreter named in the PT_INTERP segment is used to load the needed
shared libraries.
This interpreter is typically
\fI/lib/ld-linux.so.1\fP for binaries linked with the
Linux libc 5, or \fI/lib/ld-linux.so.2\fP for binaries linked with the
glibc 2.

All process attributes are preserved during an
.BR execve (),
except the following:
.IP *
The dispositions of any signals that are being caught are
reset to the default
.RB ( signal (7)).
.IP *
Any alternate signal stack is not preserved
.RB ( sigaltstack (2)).
.IP *
Memory mappings are not preserved
.RB ( mmap (2)).
.IP *
Attached System V shared memory segments are detached
.RB ( shmat (2)).
.IP *
POSIX shared memory regions are unmapped
.RB ( shm_open (3)).
.IP *
Open POSIX message queue descriptors are closed
.RB ( mq_overview (7)).
.IP *
Any open POSIX named semaphores are closed
.RB ( sem_overview (7)).
.IP *
POSIX timers are not preserved
.RB ( timer_create (2)).
.IP *
Any open directory streams are closed
.RB ( opendir (3)).
.IP *
Memory locks are not preserved
.RB ( mlock (2),
.BR mlockall (2)).
.IP *
Exit handlers are not preserved
.RB ( atexit (3),
.BR on_exit (3)).
.IP *
The floating-point environment is reset to the default (see
.BR fenv (3)).
.PP
The process attributes in the preceding list are all specified
in POSIX.1-2001.
The following Linux-specific process attributes are also
not preserved during an
.BR execve ():
.IP * 3
The
.BR prctl (2)
.B PR_SET_DUMPABLE
flag is set,
unless a set-user-ID or set-group ID program is being executed,
in which case it is cleared.
.IP *
The
.BR prctl (2)
.B PR_SET_KEEPCAPS
flag is cleared.
.IP *
The process name, as set by
.BR prctl (2)
.B PR_SET_NAME
(and displayed by
.IR "ps\ \-o comm" ),
is reset to the name of the new executable file.
.IP *
The termination signal is reset to
.B SIGCHLD
(see
.BR clone (2)).
.PP
Note the following further points:
.IP * 3
All threads other than the calling thread are destroyed during an
.BR execve ().
Mutexes, condition variables, and other pthreads objects are not preserved.
.IP *
The equivalent of \fIsetlocale(LC_ALL, "C")\fP
is executed at program start-up.
.IP *
POSIX.1-2001 specifies that the dispositions of any signals that
are ignored or set to the default are left unchanged.
POSIX.1-2001 specifies one exception: if
.B SIGCHLD
is being ignored,
then an implementation may leave the disposition unchanged or
reset it to the default; Linux does the former.
.IP *
Any outstanding asynchronous I/O operations are canceled
.RB ( aio_read (3),
.BR aio_write (3)).
.IP *
For the handling of capabilities during
.BR execve (),
see
.BR capabilities (7).
.IP *
By default, file descriptors remain open across an
.BR execve ().
File descriptors that are marked close-on-exec are closed;
see the description of
.B FD_CLOEXEC
in
.BR fcntl (2).
(If a file descriptor is closed, this will cause the release
of all record locks obtained on the underlying file by this process.
See
.BR fcntl (2)
for details.)
POSIX.1-2001 says that if file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 would
otherwise be closed after a successful
.BR execve (),
and the process would gain privilege because the set-user_ID or
set-group_ID permission bit was set on the executed file,
then the system may open an unspecified file for each of these
file descriptors.
As a general principle, no portable program, whether privileged or not,
can assume that these three file descriptors will remain
closed across an
.BR execve ().
.\" On Linux it appears that these file descriptors are
.\" always open after an execve(), and it looks like
.\" Solaris 8 and FreeBSD 6.1 are the same. -- mtk, 30 Apr 2007
.SS Interpreter scripts
An interpreter script is a text file that has execute
permission enabled and whose first line is of the form:

.in +4n
.nf
\fB#!\fP \fIinterpreter \fP[optional-arg]
.fi
.in

The
.I interpreter
must be a valid pathname for an
executable which is not itself a script.
If the
.I filename
argument of
.BR execve ()
specifies an interpreter script, then
.I interpreter
will be invoked with the following arguments:

.in +4n
.nf
\fIinterpreter\fP [optional-arg] \fIfilename\fP arg...
.fi
.in

where
.I arg...
is the series of words pointed to by the
.I argv
argument of
.BR execve ().

For portable use,
.I optional-arg
should either be absent, or be specified as a single word (i.e., it
should not contain white space); see NOTES below.
.SS "Limits on size of arguments and environment"
Most Unix implementations impose some limit on the total size
of the command-line argument
.RI ( argv )
and environment
.RI ( envp )
strings that may be passed to a new program.
POSIX.1 allows an implementation to advertise this limit using the
.B ARG_MAX
constant (either defined in
.I <limits.h>
or available at run time using the call
.IR "sysconf(_SC_ARG_MAX)" ).

On Linux prior to kernel 2.6.23, the memory used to store the
environment and argument strings was limited to 32 pages
(defined by the kernel constant
.BR MAX_ARG_PAGES ).
On architectures with a 4-kB page size,
this yields a maximum size of 128 kB.

On kernel 2.6.23 and later, most architectures support a size limit
derived from the soft
.B RLIMIT_STACK
resource limit (see
.BR getrlimit (2))
that is in force at the time of the
.BR execve ()
call.
(Architectures with no memory management unit are excepted:
they maintain the limit that was in effect before kernel 2.6.23.)
This change allows programs to have a much larger
argument and/or environment list.
.\" For some background on the changes to ARG_MAX in kernels 2.6.23 and
.\" 2.6.25, see:
.\"     http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=5786
.\"     http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10095
.\"     http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/646709/focus=648101,
.\"     checked into 2.6.25 as commit a64e715fc74b1a7dcc5944f848acc38b2c4d4ee2.
For these architectures, the total size is limited to 1/4 of the allowed
stack size.
(Imposing the 1/4-limit
ensures that the new program always has some stack space.)
.\" Ollie: That doesn't include the lists of pointers, though,
.\" so the actual usage is a bit higher (1 pointer per argument).
Since Linux 2.6.25,
the kernel places a floor of 32 pages on this size limit,
so that, even when
.BR RLIMIT_STACK
is set very low,
applications are guaranteed to have at least as much argument and
environment space as was provided by Linux 2.6.23 and earlier.
(This guarantee was not provided in Linux 2.6.23 and 2.6.24.)
Additionally, the limit per string is 32 pages (the kernel constant
.BR MAX_ARG_STRLEN ),
and the maximum number of strings is 0x7FFFFFFF.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
On success,
.BR execve ()
does not return, on error \-1 is returned, and
.I errno
is set appropriately.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B E2BIG
The total number of bytes in the environment
.RI ( envp )
and argument list
.RI ( argv )
is too large.
.TP
.B EACCES
Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix of
.I filename
or the name of a script interpreter.
(See also
.BR path_resolution (7).)
.TP
.B EACCES
The file or a script interpreter is not a regular file.
.TP
.B EACCES
Execute permission is denied for the file or a script or ELF interpreter.
.TP
.B EACCES
The file system is mounted
.IR noexec .
.TP
.B EFAULT
.I filename
points outside your accessible address space.
.TP
.B EINVAL
An ELF executable had more than one PT_INTERP segment (i.e., tried to
name more than one interpreter).
.TP
.B EIO
An I/O error occurred.
.TP
.B EISDIR
An ELF interpreter was a directory.
.TP
.B ELIBBAD
An ELF interpreter was not in a recognized format.
.TP
.B ELOOP
Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving
.I filename
or the name of a script or ELF interpreter.
.TP
.B EMFILE
The process has the maximum number of files open.
.TP
.B ENAMETOOLONG
.I filename
is too long.
.TP
.B ENFILE
The system limit on the total number of open files has been reached.
.TP
.B ENOENT
The file
.I filename
or a script or ELF interpreter does not exist, or a shared library
needed for file or interpreter cannot be found.
.TP
.B ENOEXEC
An executable is not in a recognized format, is for the wrong
architecture, or has some other format error that means it cannot be
executed.
.TP
.B ENOMEM
Insufficient kernel memory was available.
.TP
.B ENOTDIR
A component of the path prefix of
.I filename
or a script or ELF interpreter is not a directory.
.TP
.B EPERM
The file system is mounted
.IR nosuid ,
the user is not the superuser,
and the file has the set-user-ID or set-group-ID bit set.
.TP
.B EPERM
The process is being traced, the user is not the superuser and the
file has the set-user-ID or set-group-ID bit set.
.TP
.B ETXTBSY
Executable was open for writing by one or more processes.
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.
POSIX.1-2001 does not document the #!  behavior
but is otherwise compatible.
.\" SVr4 documents additional error
.\" conditions EAGAIN, EINTR, ELIBACC, ENOLINK, EMULTIHOP; POSIX does not
.\" document ETXTBSY, EPERM, EFAULT, ELOOP, EIO, ENFILE, EMFILE, EINVAL,
.\" EISDIR or ELIBBAD error conditions.
.SH NOTES
Set-user-ID and set-group-ID processes can not be
.BR ptrace (2)d.

Linux ignores the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits on scripts.

The result of mounting a file system
.I nosuid
varies across Linux kernel versions:
some will refuse execution of set-user-ID and set-group-ID
executables when this would
give the user powers she did not have already (and return
.BR EPERM ),
some will just ignore the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits and
.BR exec ()
successfully.

A maximum line length of 127 characters is allowed for the first line in
a #! executable shell script.

The semantics of the
.I optional-arg
argument of an interpreter script vary across implementations.
On Linux, the entire string following the
.I interpreter
name is passed as a single argument to the interpreter,
and this string can include white space.
However, behavior differs on some other systems.
Some systems
.\" e.g., Solaris 8
use the first white space to terminate
.IR optional-arg .
On some systems,
.\" e.g., FreeBSD before 6.0, but not FreeBSD 6.0 onwards
an interpreter script can have multiple arguments,
and white spaces in
.I optional-arg
are used to delimit the arguments.

On Linux,
.I argv
can be specified as NULL,
which has the same effect as specifying this argument
as a pointer to a list containing a single NULL pointer.
.B "Do not take advantage of this misfeature!"
It is nonstandard and nonportable:
on most other Unix systems doing this will result in an error
.RB ( EFAULT ).
.\" e.g., EFAULT on Solaris 8 and FreeBSD 6.1; but
.\" HP-UX 11 is like Linux -- mtk, Apr 2007
.\" Bug filed 30 Apr 2007: http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8408
.\" Bug rejected (because fix would constitute an ABI change).
.\"

POSIX.1-2001 says that values returned by
.BR sysconf (3)
should be invariant over the lifetime of a process.
However, since Linux 2.6.23, if the
.BR RLIMIT_STACK
resource limit changes, then the value reported by
.B _SC_ARG_MAX
will also change,
to reflect the fact that the limit on space for holding
command-line arguments and environment variables has changed.
.\"
.\" .SH BUGS
.\" Some Linux versions have failed to check permissions on ELF
.\" interpreters.  This is a security hole, because it allows users to
.\" open any file, such as a rewinding tape device, for reading.  Some
.\" Linux versions have also had other security holes in
.\" .BR execve ()
.\" that could be exploited for denial of service by a suitably crafted
.\" ELF binary. There are no known problems with 2.0.34 or 2.2.15.
.SS Historical
With Unix V6 the argument list of an
.BR exec ()
call was ended by 0,
while the argument list of
.I main
was ended by \-1.
Thus, this argument list was not directly usable in a further
.BR exec ()
call.
Since Unix V7 both are NULL.
.SH EXAMPLE
The following program is designed to be execed by the second program below.
It just echoes its command-line one per line.

.in +4n
.nf
/* myecho.c */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    int j;

    for (j = 0; j < argc; j++)
        printf("argv[%d]: %s\\n", j, argv[j]);

    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
.fi
.in

This program can be used to exec the program named in its command-line
argument:
.in +4n
.nf

/* execve.c */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    char *newargv[] = { NULL, "hello", "world", NULL };
    char *newenviron[] = { NULL };

    if (argc != 2) {
	fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <file-to-exec>\\n", argv[0]);
	exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    newargv[0] = argv[1];

    execve(argv[1], newargv, newenviron);
    perror("execve");   /* execve() only returns on error */
    exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
.fi
.in

We can use the second program to exec the first as follows:

.in +4n
.nf
.RB "$" " cc myecho.c \-o myecho"
.RB "$" " cc execve.c \-o execve"
.RB "$" " ./execve ./myecho"
argv[0]: ./myecho
argv[1]: hello
argv[2]: world
.fi
.in

We can also use these programs to demonstrate the use of a script
interpreter.
To do this we create a script whose "interpreter" is our
.I myecho
program:

.in +4n
.nf
.RB "$" " cat > script.sh"
.B #! ./myecho script-arg
.B ^D
.RB "$" " chmod +x script.sh"
.fi
.in

We can then use our program to exec the script:

.in +4n
.nf
.RB "$" " ./execve ./script.sh"
argv[0]: ./myecho
argv[1]: script-arg
argv[2]: ./script.sh
argv[3]: hello
argv[4]: world
.fi
.in
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR chmod (2),
.BR fork (2),
.BR ptrace (2),
.BR execl (3),
.BR fexecve (3),
.BR getopt (3),
.BR credentials (7),
.BR environ (7),
.BR path_resolution (7),
.BR ld.so (8)
.SH COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.27 of the Linux
.I man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
and information about reporting bugs,
can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.