.\"	$OpenBSD: access.2,v 1.15 2008/06/10 16:37:57 otto Exp $
.\"	$NetBSD: access.2,v 1.7 1995/02/27 12:31:44 cgd Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\"     @(#)access.2	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/1/94
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: June 10 2008 $
.Dt ACCESS 2
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm access
.Nd check access permissions of a file or pathname
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Fd #include <unistd.h>
.Ft int
.Fn access "const char *path" "int mode"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn access
function checks the accessibility of the file named by
.Fa path
for the access permissions indicated by
.Fa mode .
The value of
.Fa mode
is the bitwise inclusive
.Tn OR
of the access permissions to be checked
.Pf ( Dv R_OK
for read permission,
.Dv W_OK
for write permission, and
.Dv X_OK
for execute/search permission) or the existence test,
.Dv F_OK .
All components of the pathname
.Fa path
are checked for access permissions (including
.Dv F_OK ) .
.Pp
The real user ID is used in place of the effective user ID
and the real group access list
(including the real group ID) is
used in place of the effective ID for verifying permission.
.Pp
If the invoking process has superuser privileges,
.Fn access
will always indicate success for
.Dv R_OK
and
.Dv W_OK ,
regardless of the actual file permission bits.
Likewise, for
.Dv X_OK ,
if the file has any of the execute bits set and
.Fa path
is not a directory,
.Fn access
will indicate success.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
If
.Fa path
cannot be found or if any of the desired access modes would not be granted,
then a \-1 value is returned; otherwise a 0 value is returned.
.Sh ERRORS
Access to the file is denied if:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
A component of a pathname exceeded
.Dv {NAME_MAX}
characters, or an entire path name exceeded
.Dv {PATH_MAX}
characters.
.It Bq Er ENOENT
The named file does not exist.
.It Bq Er ELOOP
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
.It Bq Er EROFS
Write access is requested for a file on a read-only file system.
.It Bq Er ETXTBSY
Write access is requested for a pure procedure (shared text)
file presently being executed.
.It Bq Er EACCES
Permission bits of the file mode do not permit the requested access,
or search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix.
The owner of a file has permission checked with respect to the
.Dq owner
read, write, and execute mode bits, members of the file's group other
than the owner have permission checked with respect to the
.Dq group
mode bits, and all others have permissions checked with respect to the
.Dq other
mode bits.
.It Bq Er EPERM
Write access has been requested and the named file has its immutable
flag set (see
.Xr chflags 2 ) .
.It Bq Er EFAULT
.Fa path
points outside the process's allocated address space.
.It Bq Er EIO
An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
.It Bq Er EINVAL
An invalid value was specified for
.Ar mode .
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chmod 2 ,
.Xr stat 2
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Fn access
function conforms to
.St -p1003.1-90 .
.Sh CAVEATS
.Fn access
should never be used for actual access control.
Doing so can result in a time of check vs. time of use security hole.