File Safety Functions

Functions for running file safety checks are implemented in libmailutils. The corresponding prototypes and constants are declared in the header mailutils/util.h.

mu_file_safety_check

int mu_file_safety_check (const char *filename, 
                          int mode,
			  uid_t uid,
			  mu_list_t idlist);

The function mu_file_safety_check checks whether the file filename satisfies safety checks described by the mode and uid arguments.

Its arguments are:

filename

Name of the file to check.

mode

A bitmap specifying the checks to perform. It can be constructed as a bitwise OR of one or more of the following flags, corresponding to the main safety checks:

MU_FILE_SAFETY_OWNER_MISMATCH

Check whether the file owner UID equals to the uid argument.

MU_FILE_SAFETY_WORLD_WRITABLE

Fail if the file is world writable (awrfil)

MU_FILE_SAFETY_GROUP_WRITABLE

Fail if the file is group writable (gwrfil)

MU_FILE_SAFETY_LINKED_WRDIR

Fail if the file is a symbolic link located in a (world- or group-) writable directory (linkwrdir)

MU_FILE_SAFETY_DIR_IWGRP

Fail if the file is located in a group-writable directory (gwrdir)

MU_FILE_SAFETY_DIR_IWOTH

Fail if the file is located in a world-writable directory (awrdir)

MU_FILE_SAFETY_WORLD_READABLE

Fail if the file is world readable (awrfil)

MU_FILE_SAFETY_GROUP_READABLE

Fail if the file is group readable (grdfil)

Additionally, the following two defines are provided:

MU_FILE_SAFETY_ALL

All the above checks

MU_FILE_SAFETY_NONE

No checks

uid

UID the file should be owned by, if the MU_FILE_SAFETY_OWNER_MISMATCH mode is specified.

idlist

A list used to avoid checking the same file twice. It is useful if mu_file_safety_check is to be called several times. At the first call to the function, this argument should contain a newly created list. The function uses this list to keep record of the device and inode numbers of processed files. If mu_file_safety_check determines that the file it is about to check is already entered in this list, it will immediately return MU_ERR_EXISTS.

If this is not needed, this argument should be NULL.

The mu_file_safety_check returns 0 if the file passes all checks, or one of the following error codes otherwise:

MU_ERR_PERM_OWNER_MISMATCH

File onwer does not match the requested UID.

MU_ERR_PERM_WORLD_WRITABLE

File is world writable

MU_ERR_PERM_GROUP_WRITABLE

File is group writable

MU_ERR_PERM_LINKED_WRDIR

Linked file in a writable directory

MU_ERR_PERM_DIR_IWGRP

File resides in group writable directory

MU_ERR_PERM_DIR_IWOTH

File resides in world writable directory

MU_ERR_PERM_WORLD_READABLE

File is world readable

MU_ERR_PERM_GROUP_READABLE

File is group readable

MU_ERR_EXISTS

The file has already been checked before (see the description of the idlist argument, above).

mu_file_safety_name_to_code

int mu_file_safety_name_to_code (const char *name, int *pcode);

This function converts the symbolic safety check name name to the corresponding MU_FILE_SAFETY constant.

If the conversion succeeds, the function stores the result in the memory location pointed to by the pcode argument and returns 0. If name does not match any safety check name, the function returns MU_ERR_NOENT.

mu_file_safety_name_to_error

int mu_file_safety_name_to_error (const char *name, int *pcode);

This function converts the symbolic safety check name name to the corresponding MU_ERR_PERM error code.

If the conversion succeeds, the function stores the result in the memory location pointed to by the pcode argument and returns 0. If name does not match any safety check name, the function returns MU_ERR_NOENT.

Safety Checks, Modes and Error Codes

The following table summarizes the available safety checks and their corresponding mode and error codes:

Check name	Mode	Error code
awrfil	MU_FILE_SAFETY_WORLD_WRITABLE	MU_ERR_PERM_WORLD_WRITABLE
gwrfil	MU_FILE_SAFETY_GROUP_WRITABLE	MU_ERR_PERM_GROUP_WRITABLE
linkwrdir	MU_FILE_SAFETY_LINKED_WRDIR	MU_ERR_PERM_LINKED_WRDIR
awrdir	MU_FILE_SAFETY_DIR_IWGRP	MU_ERR_PERM_DIR_IWGRP
gwrdir	MU_FILE_SAFETY_DIR_IWOTH	MU_ERR_PERM_DIR_IWOTH
ardfil	MU_FILE_SAFETY_WORLD_READABLE	MU_ERR_PERM_WORLD_READABLE
grdfil	MU_FILE_SAFETY_GROUP_READABLE	MU_ERR_PERM_GROUP_READABLE

See also

• File Safety Checks