xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/sys/intro.2 (revision 23c8222edbfb0f0932d88a8351d3a0cf817dfb9e)
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30.\"     @(#)intro.2	8.5 (Berkeley) 2/27/95
31.\"
32.Dd January 7, 2004
33.Dt INTRO 2
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm intro ,
37.Nm errno
38.Nd introduction to system calls and error numbers
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.In errno.h
41.Sh DESCRIPTION
42This section provides an overview of the system calls,
43their error returns, and other common definitions and concepts.
44.\".Pp
45.\".Sy System call restart
46.\".Pp
47.\"<more later...>
48.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
49Nearly all of the system calls provide an error number in the external
50variable
51.Va errno .
52.Va errno
53is implemented as a macro which expands to a modifiable lvalue of type
54.Fa int .
55.Pp
56When a system call detects an error,
57it returns an integer value
58indicating failure (usually \-1)
59and sets the variable
60.Va errno
61accordingly.
62(This allows interpretation of the failure on receiving
63a \-1 and to take action accordingly.)
64Successful calls never set
65.Va errno ;
66once set, it remains until another error occurs.
67It should only be examined after an error.
68Note that a number of system calls overload the meanings of these
69error numbers, and that the meanings must be interpreted according
70to the type and circumstances of the call.
71.Pp
72The manual page for each system call will list some of the common
73errno codes that system call can return, but that should not be
74considered an exhaustive list, i.e.
75a properly written program should be able to gracefully recover from
76any error that a system call might return.
77Documenting all the error codes that a system call can return in
78a more specification-like manner would take more resources than
79this project has available.
80.Pp
81The following is a complete list of the errors and their
82names as given in
83.Aq Pa errno.h .
84.Bl -hang -width Ds
85.It Er 0 Em "Error 0" .
86Not used.
87.It Er 1 EPERM Em "Operation not permitted" .
88An attempt was made to perform an operation limited to processes
89with appropriate privileges or to the owner of a file or other
90resources.
91.It Er 2 ENOENT Em "No such file or directory" .
92A component of a specified pathname did not exist, or the
93pathname was an empty string.
94.It Er 3 ESRCH Em "No such process" .
95No process could be found corresponding to that specified by the given
96process ID.
97.It Er 4 EINTR Em "Interrupted function call" .
98An asynchronous signal (such as
99.Dv SIGINT
100or
101.Dv SIGQUIT )
102was caught by the process during the execution of an interruptible
103function.
104If the signal handler performs a normal return, the
105interrupted function call will seem to have returned the error condition.
106.It Er 5 EIO Em "Input/output error" .
107Some physical input or output error occurred.
108This error will not be reported until a subsequent operation on the same file
109descriptor and may be lost (over written) by any subsequent errors.
110.It Er 6 ENXIO Em "\&No such device or address" .
111Input or output on a special file referred to a device that did not
112exist, or
113made a request beyond the limits of the device.
114This error may also occur when, for example,
115a tape drive is not online or no disk pack is
116loaded on a drive.
117.It Er 7 E2BIG Em "Arg list too long" .
118The number of bytes used for the argument and environment
119list of the new process exceeded the current limit of
120.if t 2\u\s-218\s+2\d
121.if n 2**18
122bytes
123.Pf ( Dv ARG_MAX
124in
125.Aq Pa sys/syslimits.h ) .
126.It Er 8 ENOEXEC Em "Exec format error" .
127A request was made to execute a file
128that, although it has the appropriate permissions,
129was not in the format required for an
130executable file.
131.It Er 9 EBADF Em "Bad file descriptor" .
132A file descriptor argument was out of range, referred to no open file,
133had been revoked by
134.Xr revoke 2 ,
135or a
136.Xr read 2
137(or
138.Xr write 2 )
139request was made to a file that was
140only open for writing (or reading).
141.It Er 10 ECHILD Em "\&No child processes" .
142A
143.Xr wait 2
144or
145.Xr waitpid 2
146function was executed by a process that had no existing or unwaited-for
147child processes.
148.It Er 11 EDEADLK Em "Resource deadlock avoided" .
149An attempt was made to lock a system resource that
150would have resulted in a deadlock situation.
151.It Er 12 ENOMEM Em "Cannot allocate memory" .
152The new process image required more memory than was allowed by the hardware
153or by system-imposed memory management constraints.
154A lack of swap space is normally temporary; however,
155a lack of core is not.
156Soft limits may be increased to their corresponding hard limits.
157.It Er 13 EACCES Em "Permission denied" .
158An attempt was made to access a file in a way forbidden
159by its file access permissions.
160.It Er 14 EFAULT Em "Bad address" .
161The system detected an invalid address in attempting to
162use an argument of a call.
163The reliable detection of this error cannot be guaranteed and when not detected
164may result in the generation of a signal, indicating an address violation,
165which is sent to the process.
166.It Er 15 ENOTBLK Em "Not a block device" .
167A block device operation was attempted on a non-block device or file.
168.It Er 16 EBUSY Em "Resource busy" .
169An attempt to use a system resource which was in use at the time
170in a manner which would have conflicted with the request.
171.It Er 17 EEXIST Em "File exists" .
172An existing file was mentioned in an inappropriate context,
173for instance, as the new link name in a
174.Xr link 2
175function.
176.It Er 18 EXDEV Em "Improper link" .
177A hard link to a file on another file system
178was attempted.
179.It Er 19 ENODEV Em "Operation not supported by device" .
180An attempt was made to apply an inappropriate
181function to a device,
182for example,
183trying to read a write-only device such as a printer.
184.It Er 20 ENOTDIR Em "Not a directory" .
185A component of the specified pathname existed, but it was
186not a directory, when a directory was expected.
187.It Er 21 EISDIR Em "Is a directory" .
188An attempt was made to open a directory with write mode specified.
189.It Er 22 EINVAL Em "Invalid argument" .
190Some invalid argument was supplied.
191(For example, specifying an undefined signal to a
192.Xr signal 3
193or
194.Xr kill 2
195function).
196.It Er 23 ENFILE Em "Too many open files in system" .
197Maximum number of file descriptors allowable on the system
198has been reached and a requests for an open cannot be satisfied
199until at least one has been closed.
200.It Er 24 EMFILE Em "Too many open files" .
201\*[Lt]As released, the limit on the number of
202open files per process is 64.\*[Gt]
203The
204.Xr getrlimit 2
205call with the
206.Ar RLIMIT_NOFILE
207resource will obtain the current limit.
208.It Er 25 ENOTTY Em "Inappropriate ioctl for device" .
209A control function (see
210.Xr ioctl 2 )
211was attempted for a file or
212special device for which the operation was inappropriate.
213.It Er 26 ETXTBSY Em "Text file busy" .
214The new process was a pure procedure (shared text) file
215which was open for writing by another process, or
216while the pure procedure file was being executed an
217.Xr open 2
218call requested write access.
219.It Er 27 EFBIG Em "File too large" .
220The size of a file exceeded the maximum.
221(The system-wide maximum file size is
222.if t 2\u\s-263\s+2\d
223.if n 2**63
224bytes.
225Each file system may impose a lower limit for files contained within it).
226.It Er 28 ENOSPC Em "Device out of space" .
227A
228.Xr write 2
229to an ordinary file, the creation of a
230directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory
231entry failed because no more disk blocks were available
232on the file system, or the allocation of an inode for a newly
233created file failed because no more inodes were available
234on the file system.
235.It Er 29 ESPIPE Em "Illegal seek" .
236An
237.Xr lseek 2
238function was issued on a socket, pipe or
239.Tn FIFO .
240.It Er 30 EROFS Em "Read-only file system" .
241An attempt was made to modify a file or directory
242was made
243on a file system that was read-only at the time.
244.It Er 31 EMLINK Em "Too many links" .
245The number of hard links to a single file has exceeded the maximum.
246(The system-wide maximum number of hard links is 32767.
247Each file system may impose a lower limit for files contained within it).
248.It Er 32 EPIPE Em "Broken pipe" .
249A write on a pipe, socket or
250.Tn FIFO
251for which there is no process
252to read the data.
253.It Er 33 EDOM Em "Numerical argument out of domain" .
254A numerical input argument was outside the defined domain of the mathematical
255function.
256.It Er 34 ERANGE Em "Result too large or too small" .
257The result of the function is too large or too small to be represented
258in the available space.
259.It Er 35 EAGAIN Em "Resource temporarily unavailable" .
260This is a temporary condition and later calls to the
261same routine may complete normally.
262.It Er 36 EINPROGRESS Em "Operation now in progress" .
263An operation that takes a long time to complete (such as
264a
265.Xr connect 2 )
266was attempted on a non-blocking object (see
267.Xr fcntl 2 ) .
268.It Er 37 EALREADY Em "Operation already in progress" .
269An operation was attempted on a non-blocking object that already
270had an operation in progress.
271.It Er 38 ENOTSOCK Em "Socket operation on non-socket" .
272Self-explanatory.
273.It Er 39 EDESTADDRREQ Em "Destination address required" .
274A required address was omitted from an operation on a socket.
275.It Er 40 EMSGSIZE Em "Message too long" .
276A message sent on a socket was larger than the internal message buffer
277or some other network limit.
278.It Er 41 EPROTOTYPE Em "Protocol wrong type for socket" .
279A protocol was specified that does not support the semantics of the
280socket type requested.
281For example, you cannot use the
282.Tn ARPA
283Internet
284.Tn UDP
285protocol with type
286.Dv SOCK_STREAM .
287.It Er 42 ENOPROTOOPT Em "Protocol not available" .
288A bad option or level was specified in a
289.Xr getsockopt 2
290or
291.Xr setsockopt 2
292call.
293.It Er 43 EPROTONOSUPPORT Em "Protocol not supported" .
294The protocol has not been configured into the
295system or no implementation for it exists.
296.It Er 44 ESOCKTNOSUPPORT Em "Socket type not supported" .
297The support for the socket type has not been configured into the
298system or no implementation for it exists.
299.It Er 45 EOPNOTSUPP Em "Operation not supported" .
300The attempted operation is not supported for the type of object referenced.
301Usually this occurs when a file descriptor refers to a file or socket
302that cannot support this operation,
303for example, trying to
304.Em accept
305a connection on a datagram socket.
306.It Er 46 EPFNOSUPPORT Em "Protocol family not supported" .
307The protocol family has not been configured into the
308system or no implementation for it exists.
309.It Er 47 EAFNOSUPPORT Em "Address family not supported by protocol family" .
310An address incompatible with the requested protocol was used.
311For example, you shouldn't necessarily expect to be able to use
312.Tn NS
313addresses with
314.Tn ARPA
315Internet protocols.
316.It Er 48 EADDRINUSE Em "Address already in use" .
317Only one usage of each address is normally permitted.
318.It Er 49 EADDRNOTAVAIL Em "Cannot assign requested address" .
319Normally results from an attempt to create a socket with an
320address not on this machine.
321.It Er 50 ENETDOWN Em "Network is down" .
322A socket operation encountered a dead network.
323.It Er 51 ENETUNREACH Em "Network is unreachable" .
324A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable network.
325.It Er 52 ENETRESET Em "Network dropped connection on reset" .
326The host you were connected to crashed and rebooted.
327.It Er 53 ECONNABORTED Em "Software caused connection abort" .
328A connection abort was caused internal to your host machine.
329.It Er 54 ECONNRESET Em "Connection reset by peer" .
330A connection was forcibly closed by a peer.
331This normally results from a loss of the connection on the remote
332socket due to a timeout or a reboot.
333.It Er 55 ENOBUFS Em "\&No buffer space available" .
334An operation on a socket or pipe was not performed because
335the system lacked sufficient buffer space or because a queue was full.
336.It Er 56 EISCONN Em "Socket is already connected" .
337A
338.Xr connect 2
339request was made on an already connected socket; or,
340a
341.Xr sendto 2
342or
343.Xr sendmsg 2
344request on a connected socket specified a destination
345when already connected.
346.It Er 57 ENOTCONN Em "Socket is not connected" .
347An request to send or receive data was disallowed because
348the socket was not connected and (when sending on a datagram socket)
349no address was supplied.
350.It Er 58 ESHUTDOWN Em "Cannot send after socket shutdown" .
351A request to send data was disallowed because the socket
352had already been shut down with a previous
353.Xr shutdown 2
354call.
355.It Er 60 ETIMEDOUT Em "Operation timed out" .
356A
357.Xr connect 2
358or
359.Xr send 2
360request failed because the connected party did not
361properly respond after a period of time.
362(The timeout period is dependent on the communication protocol).
363.It Er 61 ECONNREFUSED Em "Connection refused" .
364No connection could be made because the target machine actively
365refused it.
366This usually results from trying to connect
367to a service that is inactive on the foreign host.
368.It Er 62 ELOOP Em "Too many levels of symbolic links" .
369A path name lookup involved more than 32
370.Pq Dv MAXSYMLINKS
371symbolic links.
372.It Er 63 ENAMETOOLONG Em "File name too long" .
373A component of a path name exceeded 255
374.Pq Dv MAXNAMELEN
375characters, or an entire
376path name exceeded 1023
377.Pq Dv MAXPATHLEN Ns \-1
378characters.
379.It Er 64 EHOSTDOWN Em "Host is down" .
380A socket operation failed because the destination host was down.
381.It Er 65 EHOSTUNREACH Em "No route to host" .
382A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host.
383.It Er 66 ENOTEMPTY Em "Directory not empty" .
384A directory with entries other than
385.Ql \&.
386and
387.Ql \&..
388was supplied to a remove directory or rename call.
389.It Er 67 EPROCLIM Em "Too many processes" .
390.It Er 68 EUSERS Em "Too many users" .
391The quota system ran out of table entries.
392.It Er 69 EDQUOT Em "Disc quota exceeded" .
393A
394.Xr write 2
395to an ordinary file, the creation of a
396directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory
397entry failed because the user's quota of disk blocks was
398exhausted, or the allocation of an inode for a newly
399created file failed because the user's quota of inodes
400was exhausted.
401.It Er 70 ESTALE Em "Stale NFS file handle" .
402An attempt was made to access an open file (on an
403.Tn NFS
404filesystem)
405which is now unavailable as referenced by the file descriptor.
406This may indicate the file was deleted on the
407.Tn NFS
408server or some other catastrophic event occurred.
409.It Er 72 EBADRPC Em "RPC struct is bad" .
410Exchange of
411.Tn RPC
412information was unsuccessful.
413.It Er 73 ERPCMISMATCH Em "RPC version wrong" .
414The version of
415.Tn RPC
416on the remote peer is not compatible with
417the local version.
418.It Er 74 EPROGUNAVAIL Em "RPC prog. not avail" .
419The requested program is not registered on the remote host.
420.It Er 75 EPROGMISMATCH Em "Program version wrong" .
421The requested version of the program is not available
422on the remote host
423.Pq Tn RPC .
424.It Er 76 EPROCUNAVAIL Em "Bad procedure for program" .
425An
426.Tn RPC
427call was attempted for a procedure which doesn't exist
428in the remote program.
429.It Er 77 ENOLCK Em "No locks available" .
430A system-imposed limit on the number of simultaneous file
431locks was reached.
432.It Er 78 ENOSYS Em "Function not implemented" .
433Attempted a system call that is not available on this
434system.
435.It Er 79 EFTYPE Em "Inappropriate file type or format" .
436Attempted a file operation on a file of a type for which it was invalid.
437.It Er 80 EAUTH Em "Authentication error" .
438Attempted to use an invalid authentication ticket to mount an
439.Tn NFS
440filesystem.
441.It Er 81 ENEEDAUTH Em "Need authenticator" .
442An authentication ticket must be obtained before the given
443.Tn NFS
444filesystem may be mounted.
445.It Er 82 EIDRM Em "Identifier removed" .
446An IPC identifier was removed while the current process was waiting on it.
447.It Er 83 ENOMSG Em "No message of the desired type" .
448An IPC message queue does not contain a message of the desired type,
449or a message catalog does not contain the requested message.
450.It Er 84 EOVERFLOW Em "Value too large to be stored in data type" .
451A numerical result of the function was too large to be stored in the
452caller-provided space.
453.It Er 85 EILSEQ Em "Illegal byte sequence" .
454A wide character/multibyte character encoding error occurred.
455.It Er 86 ENOTSUP Em "Not supported" .
456An attempt was made to set or change a parameter to an unsupported
457value.
458.It Er 87 ECANCELED Em "Operation canceled" .
459The requested operation was canceled.
460.It Er 88 EBADMSG Em "Bad or corrupt message" .
461A message in the specified message catalog did not satisfy implementation
462defined criteria, or a STREAMS operation encountered an invalid message or
463a file descriptor at the STREAM head.
464.It Er 89 ENODATA Em "No message available" .
465No message is available on the STREAM head read queue
466.It Er 90 ENOSR Em "No STREAM resources" .
467Buffers could not be allocated due to insufficient STREAMs memory resources.
468.It Er 91 ENOSTR Em "Not a STREAM" .
469A STREAM is not associated with the specified file descriptor.
470.It Er 92 ETIME Em "STREAM ioctl timeout" .
471The timer set for a STREAMS
472.Xr ioctl 2
473operation has expired.
474.El
475.Sh DEFINITIONS
476.Bl -tag -width Ds
477.It Process ID .
478Each active process in the system is uniquely identified by a non-negative
479integer called a process ID.
480The range of this ID is from 0 to 30000.
481.It Parent process ID
482A new process is created by a currently active process; (see
483.Xr fork 2 ) .
484The parent process ID of a process is initially the process ID of its creator.
485If the creating process exits,
486the parent process ID of each child is set to the ID of a system process,
487.Xr init 8 .
488.It Process Group
489Each active process is a member of a process group that is identified by
490a non-negative integer called the process group ID.
491This is the process ID of the group leader.
492This grouping permits the signaling of related processes (see
493.Xr termios 4 )
494and the job control mechanisms of
495.Xr csh 1 .
496.It Session
497A session is a set of one or more process groups.
498A session is created by a successful call to
499.Xr setsid 2 ,
500which causes the caller to become the only member of the only process
501group in the new session.
502.It Session leader
503A process that has created a new session by a successful call to
504.Xr setsid 2 ,
505is known as a session leader.
506Only a session leader may acquire a terminal as its controlling terminal (see
507.Xr termios 4 ) .
508.It Controlling process
509A session leader with a controlling terminal is a controlling process.
510.It Controlling terminal
511A terminal that is associated with a session is known as the controlling
512terminal for that session and its members.
513.It "Terminal Process Group ID"
514A terminal may be acquired by a session leader as its controlling terminal.
515Once a terminal is associated with a session, any of the process groups
516within the session may be placed into the foreground by setting
517the terminal process group ID to the ID of the process group.
518This facility is used
519to arbitrate between multiple jobs contending for the same terminal.
520(See
521.Xr csh 1
522and
523.Xr tty 4
524for more information on job control.)
525.It "Orphaned Process Group"
526A process group is considered to be
527.Em orphaned
528if it is not under the control of a job control shell.
529More precisely, a process group is orphaned
530when none of its members has a parent process that is in the same session
531as the group,
532but is in a different process group.
533Note that when a process exits, the parent process for its children
534is changed to be
535.Xr init 8 ,
536which is in a separate session.
537Not all members of an orphaned process group are necessarily orphaned
538processes (those whose creating process has exited).
539The process group of a session leader is orphaned by definition.
540.It "Real User ID and Real Group ID"
541Each user on the system is identified by a positive integer
542termed the real user ID.
543.Pp
544Each user is also a member of one or more groups.
545One of these groups is distinguished from others and
546used in implementing accounting facilities.
547The positive integer corresponding to this distinguished group is
548termed the real group ID.
549.Pp
550All processes have a real user ID and real group ID.
551These are initialized from the equivalent attributes
552of the process that created it.
553.It "Effective User Id, Effective Group Id, and Group Access List"
554Access to system resources is governed by two values:
555the effective user ID, and the group access list.
556The first member of the group access list is also known as the
557effective group ID.
558(In POSIX.1, the group access list is known as the set of supplementary
559group IDs, and it is unspecified whether the effective group ID is
560a member of the list.)
561.Pp
562The effective user ID and effective group ID are initially the
563process's real user ID and real group ID respectively.
564Either may be modified through execution of a set-user-ID or
565set-group-ID file (possibly by one its ancestors) (see
566.Xr execve 2 ) .
567By convention, the effective group ID (the first member of the group access
568list) is duplicated, so that the execution of a set-group-ID program
569does not result in the loss of the original (real) group ID.
570.Pp
571The group access list is a set of group IDs
572used only in determining resource accessibility.
573Access checks are performed as described below in
574.Qq File Access Permissions .
575.It "Saved Set User ID and Saved Set Group ID"
576When a process executes a new file, the effective user ID is set
577to the owner of the file if the file is set-user-ID, and the effective
578group ID (first element of the group access list) is set to the group
579of the file if the file is set-group-ID.
580The effective user ID of the process is then recorded as the saved set-user-ID,
581and the effective group ID of the process is recorded as the saved set-group-ID.
582These values may be used to regain those values as the effective user
583or group ID after reverting to the real ID (see
584.Xr setuid 2 ) .
585(In POSIX.1, the saved set-user-ID and saved set-group-ID are optional,
586and are used in setuid and setgid, but this does not work as desired
587for the super-user.)
588.It Super-user
589A process is recognized as a
590.Em super-user
591process and is granted special privileges if its effective user ID is 0.
592.It Special Processes
593The processes with process IDs of 0 and 1 are special.
594Process 0 is the scheduler.
595Process 1 is the initialization process
596.Xr init 8 ,
597and is the ancestor (parent) of every other process in the system.
598It is used to control the process structure.
599The kernel will allocate other kernel threads to handle certain
600periodic tasks or device related tasks, such as:
601.Bl -tag -width pagedaemon
602.It Sy acctwatch
603System accounting disk watcher, see
604.Xr acct 2 ,
605.Xr acct 5 .
606.It Sy aiodoned
607Asynchronous I/O done handler, see
608.Xr uvm 9 .
609.It Sy atabusX
610ATA bus handler, see
611.Xr ata 4 .
612.It Sy cardslotX
613CardBus slot watcher thread, see
614.Xr cardslot 4 .
615.It Sy cryptoret
616The software crypto daemon.
617.It Sy fssbsX
618File system snapshot thread, see
619.Xr fss 4 .
620.It Sy ioflush
621The in-kernel periodic flush the buffer cache to disk task,
622which replaces the old
623.Sy update
624program.
625.It Sy nfsio , nfskqpoll
626NFS handing daemons.
627.It Sy lfs_writer
628Log filesystem writer.
629.It Sy pagedaemon
630The page daemon.
631.It Sy raidX , raidioX , raid_parity , raid_recon , raid_reconip , raid_copyback
632Raid framework related threads, see
633.Xr raid 4 .
634.It Sy scsibusX
635SCSI bus handler, see
636.Xr scsi 4 .
637.It Sy smbiodX , smbkq
638SMBFS handling daemon, see
639.Xr netsmb 4 .
640.It Sy swdmover
641The software data mover I/O thread, see
642.Xr dmoverio 4 .
643.It Sy sysmon
644The systems monitoring framework daemon.
645.It Sy usbX , usbtask
646USB bus handler, see
647.Xr usb 4 .
648.El
649.Pp
650There are more machine-dependent kernel threads allocated by
651different drivers.
652See the specific driver manual pages for more information.
653.It Descriptor
654An integer assigned by the system when a file is referenced
655by
656.Xr open 2
657or
658.Xr dup 2 ,
659or when a socket is created by
660.Xr pipe 2 ,
661.Xr socket 2 ,
662or
663.Xr socketpair 2 ,
664which uniquely identifies an access path to that file or socket from
665a given process or any of its children.
666.It File Name
667Names consisting of up to 255
668.Pq Dv MAXNAMELEN
669characters may be used to name
670an ordinary file, special file, or directory.
671.Pp
672These characters may be selected from the set of all
673.Tn ASCII
674character
675excluding 0 (NUL) and the
676.Tn ASCII
677code for
678.Ql \&/
679(slash).
680(The parity bit, bit 7, must be 0).
681.Pp
682Note that it is generally unwise to use
683.Ql \&* ,
684.Ql \&? ,
685.Ql \&[
686or
687.Ql \&]
688as part of
689file names because of the special meaning attached to these characters
690by the shell.
691.It Pathname
692A path name is a
693.Tn NUL Ns -terminated
694character string starting with an
695optional slash
696.Ql \&/ ,
697followed by zero or more directory names separated
698by slashes, optionally followed by a file name.
699The total length of a path name must be less than 1024
700.Pq Dv MAXPATHLEN
701characters.
702.Pp
703If a path name begins with a slash, the path search begins at the
704.Em root
705directory.
706Otherwise, the search begins from the current working directory.
707A slash by itself names the root directory.
708An empty string is not a valid pathname.
709.It Directory
710A directory is a special type of file that contains entries
711that are references to other files.
712Directory entries are called links.
713By convention, a directory contains at least two links,
714.Ql \&.
715and
716.Ql \&.. ,
717referred to as
718.Em dot
719and
720.Em dot-dot
721respectively.
722Dot refers to the directory itself and dot-dot refers to its parent directory.
723.It "Root Directory and Current Working Directory"
724Each process has associated with it a concept of a root directory
725and a current working directory for the purpose of resolving path
726name searches.
727A process's root directory need not be the root
728directory of the root file system.
729.It File Access Permissions
730Every file in the file system has a set of access permissions.
731These permissions are used in determining whether a process
732may perform a requested operation on the file (such as opening
733a file for writing).
734Access permissions are established at the time a file is created.
735They may be changed at some later time through the
736.Xr chmod 2
737call.
738.Pp
739File access is broken down according to whether a file may be: read,
740written, or executed.
741Directory files use the execute permission to control if the
742directory may be searched.
743.Pp
744File access permissions are interpreted by the system as
745they apply to three different classes of users: the owner
746of the file, those users in the file's group, anyone else.
747Every file has an independent set of access permissions for
748each of these classes.
749When an access check is made, the system decides if permission should be
750granted by checking the access information applicable to the caller.
751.Pp
752Read, write, and execute/search permissions on
753a file are granted to a process if:
754.Pp
755The process's effective user ID is that of the super-user.
756(Note: even the super-user cannot execute a non-executable file).
757.Pp
758The process's effective user ID matches the user ID of the owner
759of the file and the owner permissions allow the access.
760.Pp
761The process's effective user ID does not match the user ID of the
762owner of the file, and either the process's effective
763group ID matches the group ID
764of the file, or the group ID of the file is in
765the process's group access list,
766and the group permissions allow the access.
767.Pp
768Neither the effective user ID nor effective group ID
769and group access list of the process
770match the corresponding user ID and group ID of the file,
771but the permissions for ``other users'' allow access.
772.Pp
773Otherwise, permission is denied.
774.It Sockets and Address Families
775A socket is an endpoint for communication between processes.
776Each socket has queues for sending and receiving data.
777.Pp
778Sockets are typed according to their communications properties.
779These properties include whether messages sent and received
780at a socket require the name of the partner, whether communication
781is reliable, the format used in naming message recipients, etc.
782.Pp
783Each instance of the system supports some
784collection of socket types; consult
785.Xr socket 2
786for more information about the types available and
787their properties.
788.Pp
789Each instance of the system supports some number of sets of
790communications protocols.
791Each protocol set supports addresses of a certain format.
792An Address Family is the set of addresses for a specific group of protocols.
793Each socket has an address
794chosen from the address family in which the socket was created.
795.El
796.Sh SEE ALSO
797.Xr intro 3 ,
798.Xr perror 3
799.Sh HISTORY
800An
801.Nm intro
802manual page appeared in
803.At v6 .
804