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SETRESUID(2)               Linux Programmer's Manual              SETRESUID(2)

NAME
       setresuid, setresgid - set real, effective and saved user or group ID

SYNOPSIS
       #define _GNU_SOURCE         /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <unistd.h>

       int setresuid(uid_t ruid, uid_t euid, uid_t suid);
       int setresgid(gid_t rgid, gid_t egid, gid_t sgid);

DESCRIPTION
       setresuid() sets the real user ID, the effective user ID, and the saved
       set-user-ID of the calling process.

       An unprivileged process may change its real  UID,  effective  UID,  and
       saved  set-user-ID,  each  to one of: the current real UID, the current
       effective UID or the current saved set-user-ID.

       A privileged process (on Linux, one having the  CAP_SETUID  capability)
       may set its real UID, effective UID, and saved set-user-ID to arbitrary
       values.

       If one of the arguments equals  -1,  the  corresponding  value  is  not
       changed.

       Regardless of what changes are made to the real UID, effective UID, and
       saved set-user-ID, the filesystem UID is always set to the  same  value
       as the (possibly new) effective UID.

       Completely  analogously,  setresgid() sets the real GID, effective GID,
       and saved set-group-ID of the calling process (and always modifies  the
       filesystem  GID to be the same as the effective GID), with the same re-
       strictions for unprivileged processes.

RETURN VALUE
       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and  errno  is
       set appropriately.

       Note:  there  are cases where setresuid() can fail even when the caller
       is UID 0; it is a grave security error to omit checking for  a  failure
       return from setresuid().

ERRORS
       EAGAIN The call would change the caller's real UID (i.e., ruid does not
              match the caller's real UID), but there was a temporary  failure
              allocating the necessary kernel data structures.

       EAGAIN ruid  does  not  match the caller's real UID and this call would
              bring the number of processes belonging to the real user ID ruid
              over the caller's RLIMIT_NPROC resource limit.  Since Linux 3.1,
              this error case no longer occurs (but robust applications should
              check  for  this  error);  see  the description of EAGAIN in ex-
              ecve(2).

       EINVAL One or more of the target user or group IDs is not valid in this
              user namespace.

       EPERM  The  calling  process is not privileged (did not have the neces-
              sary capability in its user namespace) and tried to  change  the
              IDs to values that are not permitted.  For setresuid(), the nec-
              essary capability is CAP_SETUID; for setresgid(), it is CAP_SET-
              GID.

VERSIONS
       These calls are available under Linux since Linux 2.1.44.

CONFORMING TO
       These  calls are nonstandard; they also appear on HP-UX and some of the
       BSDs.

NOTES
       Under HP-UX and FreeBSD, the prototype is found in  _unistd.h_.   Under
       Linux, the prototype is provided by glibc since version 2.3.2.

       The  original  Linux setresuid() and setresgid() system calls supported
       only 16-bit user and group IDs.  Subsequently, Linux 2.4  added  setre-
       suid32()  and  setresgid32(),  supporting 32-bit IDs.  The glibc setre-
       suid() and setresgid() wrapper functions transparently  deal  with  the
       variations across kernel versions.

   C library/kernel differences
       At the kernel level, user IDs and group IDs are a per-thread attribute.
       However, POSIX requires that all threads in a process  share  the  same
       credentials.   The  NPTL threading implementation handles the POSIX re-
       quirements by providing wrapper functions for the various system  calls
       that  change process UIDs and GIDs.  These wrapper functions (including
       those for setresuid() and setresgid()) employ a signal-based  technique
       to  ensure  that  when one thread changes credentials, all of the other
       threads in the process also change their credentials.  For details, see
       nptl(7).

SEE ALSO
       getresuid(2),  getuid(2),  setfsgid(2),  setfsuid(2),  setreuid(2), se-
       tuid(2), capabilities(7), credentials(7), user_namespaces(7)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 5.05 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
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                             2017-09-15                      SETRESUID(2)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | VERSIONS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON