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EXECVE(2) Linux Programmer's Manual EXECVE(2)
NAME
execve - execute program
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int execve(const char *filename, char *const argv[],
char *const envp[]);
DESCRIPTION
execve() executes the program pointed to by filename. filename must be either a binary executable, or a script starting
with a line of the form:
#! interpreter [optional-arg]
For details of the latter case, see "Interpreter scripts" below.
argv is an array of argument strings passed to the new program. envp is an array of strings, conventionally of the form
key=value, which are passed as environment to the new program. Both argv and envp must be terminated by a null pointer.
The argument vector and environment can be accessed by the called program's main function, when it is defined as:
int main(int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[])
execve() does not return on success, and the text, data, bss, and stack of the calling process are overwritten by that of
the program loaded.
If the current program is being ptraced, a SIGTRAP is sent to it after a successful execve().
If the set-user-ID bit is set on the program file pointed to by filename, and the underlying file system is not mounted
nosuid (the MS_NOSUID flag for mount(2)), and the calling process is not being ptraced, then the effective user ID of the
calling process is changed to that of the owner of the program file. Similarly, when the set-group-ID bit of the program
file is set the effective group ID of the calling process is set to the group of the program file.
The effective user ID of the process is copied to the saved set-user-ID; similarly, the effective group ID is copied to
the saved set-group-ID. This copying takes place after any effective ID changes that occur because of the set-user-ID
and set-group-ID permission bits.
If the executable is an a.out dynamically linked binary executable containing shared-library stubs, the Linux dynamic
linker ld.so(8) is called at the start of execution to bring needed shared libraries into memory and link the executable
with them.
If the executable is a dynamically linked ELF executable, the interpreter named in the PT_INTERP segment is used to load
the needed shared libraries. This interpreter is typically /lib/ld-linux.so.1 for binaries linked with the Linux libc 5,
or /lib/ld-linux.so.2 for binaries linked with the glibc 2.
All process attributes are preserved during an execve(), except the following:
* The dispositions of any signals that are being caught are reset to the default (signal(7)).
* Any alternate signal stack is not preserved (sigaltstack(2)).
* Memory mappings are not preserved (mmap(2)).
* Attached System V shared memory segments are detached (shmat(2)).
* POSIX shared memory regions are unmapped (shm_open(3)).
* Open POSIX message queue descriptors are closed (mq_overview(7)).
* Any open POSIX named semaphores are closed (sem_overview(7)).
* POSIX timers are not preserved (timer_create(2)).
* Any open directory streams are closed (opendir(3)).
* Memory locks are not preserved (mlock(2), mlockall(2)).
* Exit handlers are not preserved (atexit(3), on_exit(3)).
* The floating-point environment is reset to the default (see fenv(3)).
The process attributes in the preceding list are all specified in POSIX.1-2001. The following Linux-specific process
attributes are also not preserved during an execve():
* The prctl(2) PR_SET_DUMPABLE flag is set, unless a set-user-ID or set-group ID program is being executed, in which
case it is cleared.
* The prctl(2) PR_SET_KEEPCAPS flag is cleared.
* The process name, as set by prctl(2) PR_SET_NAME (and displayed by ps -o comm), is reset to the name of the new exe-
cutable file.
* The termination signal is reset to SIGCHLD (see clone(2)).
Note the following further points:
* All threads other than the calling thread are destroyed during an execve(). Mutexes, condition variables, and other
pthreads objects are not preserved.
* The equivalent of setlocale(LC_ALL, "C") is executed at program start-up.
* POSIX.1-2001 specifies that the dispositions of any signals that are ignored or set to the default are left unchanged.
POSIX.1-2001 specifies one exception: if SIGCHLD is being ignored, then an implementation may leave the disposition
unchanged or reset it to the default; Linux does the former.
* Any outstanding asynchronous I/O operations are canceled (aio_read(3), aio_write(3)).
* For the handling of capabilities during execve(), see capabilities(7).
* By default, file descriptors remain open across an execve(). File descriptors that are marked close-on-exec are
closed; see the description of FD_CLOEXEC in fcntl(2). (If a file descriptor is closed, this will cause the release
of all record locks obtained on the underlying file by this process. See fcntl(2) for details.) POSIX.1-2001 says
that if file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 would otherwise be closed after a successful execve(), and the process would gain
privilege because the set-user_ID or set-group_ID permission bit was set on the executed file, then the system may
open an unspecified file for each of these file descriptors. As a general principle, no portable program, whether
privileged or not, can assume that these three file descriptors will remain closed across an execve().
Interpreter scripts
An interpreter script is a text file that has execute permission enabled and whose first line is of the form:
#! interpreter [optional-arg]
The interpreter must be a valid pathname for an executable which is not itself a script. If the filename argument of
execve() specifies an interpreter script, then interpreter will be invoked with the following arguments:
interpreter [optional-arg] filename arg...
where arg... is the series of words pointed to by the argv argument of execve().
For portable use, optional-arg should either be absent, or be specified as a single word (i.e., it should not contain
white space); see NOTES below.
Limits on size of arguments and environment
Most Unix implementations impose some limit on the total size of the command-line argument (argv) and environment (envp)
strings that may be passed to a new program. POSIX.1 allows an implementation to advertise this limit using the ARG_MAX
constant (either defined in <limits.h> or available at run time using the call sysconf(_SC_ARG_MAX)).
On Linux prior to kernel 2.6.23, the memory used to store the environment and argument strings was limited to 32 pages
(defined by the kernel constant MAX_ARG_PAGES). On architectures with a 4-kB page size, this yields a maximum size of
128 kB.
On kernel 2.6.23 and later, most architectures support a size limit derived from the soft RLIMIT_STACK resource limit
(see getrlimit(2)) that is in force at the time of the execve() call. (Architectures with no memory management unit are
excepted: they maintain the limit that was in effect before kernel 2.6.23.) This change allows programs to have a much
larger argument and/or environment list. For these architectures, the total size is limited to 1/4 of the allowed stack
size. (Imposing the 1/4-limit ensures that the new program always has some stack space.) Since Linux 2.6.25, the kernel
places a floor of 32 pages on this size limit, so that, even when RLIMIT_STACK is set very low, applications are guaran-
teed to have at least as much argument and environment space as was provided by Linux 2.6.23 and earlier. (This guaran-
tee was not provided in Linux 2.6.23 and 2.6.24.) Additionally, the limit per string is 32 pages (the kernel constant
MAX_ARG_STRLEN), and the maximum number of strings is 0x7FFFFFFF.
RETURN VALUE
On success, execve() does not return, on error -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.
ERRORS
E2BIG The total number of bytes in the environment (envp) and argument list (argv) is too large.
EACCES Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix of filename or the name of a script interpreter.
(See also path_resolution(7).)
EACCES The file or a script interpreter is not a regular file.
EACCES Execute permission is denied for the file or a script or ELF interpreter.
EACCES The file system is mounted noexec.
EFAULT filename points outside your accessible address space.
EINVAL An ELF executable had more than one PT_INTERP segment (i.e., tried to name more than one interpreter).
EIO An I/O error occurred.
EISDIR An ELF interpreter was a directory.
ELIBBAD
An ELF interpreter was not in a recognized format.
ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving filename or the name of a script or ELF interpreter.
EMFILE The process has the maximum number of files open.
ENAMETOOLONG
filename is too long.
ENFILE The system limit on the total number of open files has been reached.
ENOENT The file filename or a script or ELF interpreter does not exist, or a shared library needed for file or inter-
preter cannot be found.
ENOEXEC
An executable is not in a recognized format, is for the wrong architecture, or has some other format error that
means it cannot be executed.
ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOTDIR
A component of the path prefix of filename or a script or ELF interpreter is not a directory.
EPERM The file system is mounted nosuid, the user is not the superuser, and the file has the set-user-ID or set-group-ID
bit set.
EPERM The process is being traced, the user is not the superuser and the file has the set-user-ID or set-group-ID bit
set.
ETXTBSY
Executable was open for writing by one or more processes.
CONFORMING TO
SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001. POSIX.1-2001 does not document the #! behavior but is otherwise compatible.
NOTES
Set-user-ID and set-group-ID processes can not be ptrace(2)d.
Linux ignores the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits on scripts.
The result of mounting a file system nosuid varies across Linux kernel versions: some will refuse execution of set-user-
ID and set-group-ID executables when this would give the user powers she did not have already (and return EPERM), some
will just ignore the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits and exec() successfully.
A maximum line length of 127 characters is allowed for the first line in a #! executable shell script.
The semantics of the optional-arg argument of an interpreter script vary across implementations. On Linux, the entire
string following the interpreter name is passed as a single argument to the interpreter, and this string can include
white space. However, behavior differs on some other systems. Some systems use the first white space to terminate
optional-arg. On some systems, an interpreter script can have multiple arguments, and white spaces in optional-arg are
used to delimit the arguments.
On Linux, argv can be specified as NULL, which has the same effect as specifying this argument as a pointer to a list
containing a single NULL pointer. Do not take advantage of this misfeature! It is nonstandard and nonportable: on most
other Unix systems doing this will result in an error (EFAULT).
POSIX.1-2001 says that values returned by sysconf(3) should be invariant over the lifetime of a process. However, since
Linux 2.6.23, if the RLIMIT_STACK resource limit changes, then the value reported by _SC_ARG_MAX will also change, to
reflect the fact that the limit on space for holding command-line arguments and environment variables has changed.
Historical
With Unix V6 the argument list of an exec() call was ended by 0, while the argument list of main was ended by -1. Thus,
this argument list was not directly usable in a further exec() call. Since Unix V7 both are NULL.
EXAMPLE
The following program is designed to be execed by the second program below. It just echoes its command-line one per
line.
/* myecho.c */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int j;
for (j = 0; j < argc; j++)
printf("argv[%d]: %s\n", j, argv[j]);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
This program can be used to exec the program named in its command-line argument:
/* execve.c */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *newargv[] = { NULL, "hello", "world", NULL };
char *newenviron[] = { NULL };
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <file-to-exec>\n", argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
newargv[0] = argv[1];
execve(argv[1], newargv, newenviron);
perror("execve"); /* execve() only returns on error */
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
We can use the second program to exec the first as follows:
$ cc myecho.c -o myecho
$ cc execve.c -o execve
$ ./execve ./myecho
argv[0]: ./myecho
argv[1]: hello
argv[2]: world
We can also use these programs to demonstrate the use of a script interpreter. To do this we create a script whose
"interpreter" is our myecho program:
$ cat > script.sh
#! ./myecho script-arg
^D
$ chmod +x script.sh
We can then use our program to exec the script:
$ ./execve ./script.sh
argv[0]: ./myecho
argv[1]: script-arg
argv[2]: ./script.sh
argv[3]: hello
argv[4]: world
SEE ALSO
chmod(2), fork(2), ptrace(2), execl(3), fexecve(3), getopt(3), credentials(7), environ(7), path_resolution(7), ld.so(8)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about
reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2010-01-06 EXECVE(2)
