_SECURE_PATH(3)        FreeBSD Library Functions Manual        _SECURE_PATH(3)

NAME
     _secure_path - determine if a file appears to be secure

LIBRARY
     System Utilities Library (libutil, -lutil)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/types.h>
     #include <libutil.h>

     int
     _secure_path(const char *path, uid_t uid, gid_t gid);

DESCRIPTION
     This function does some basic security checking on a given path.  It is
     intended to be used by processes running with root privileges in order to
     decide whether or not to trust the contents of a given file.  It uses a
     method often used to detect system compromise.

     A file is considered `secure' if it meets the following conditions:

     1.   The file exists, and is a regular file (not a symlink, device
          special or named pipe, etc.),

     2.   Is not world writable.

     3.   Is owned by the given uid or uid 0, if uid is not -1,

     4.   Is not group writable or it has group ownership by the given gid, if
          gid is not -1.

RETURN VALUES
     This function returns zero if the file exists and may be considered
     secure, -2 if the file does not exist, and -1 otherwise to indicate a
     security failure.  The syslog(3) function is used to log any failure of
     this function, including the reason, at LOG_ERR priority.

SEE ALSO
     lstat(2), syslog(3)

HISTORY
     Code from which this function was derived was contributed to the FreeBSD
     project by Berkeley Software Design, Inc.  The function _secure_path()
     first appeared in FreeBSD 2.2.5.

BUGS
     The checks carried out are rudimentary and no attempt is made to
     eliminate race conditions between use of this function and access to the
     file referenced.

FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6          May 10, 2020          FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6