setcap(8) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXIT CODE | REPORTING BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

SETCAP(8)                System Manager's Manual               SETCAP(8)

NAME         top

       setcap - set file capabilities

SYNOPSIS         top

       setcap [-q] [-n <rootuid>] [-v] {capabilities|-|-r} filename [
       ... capabilitiesN fileN ]

DESCRIPTION         top

       In the absence of the -v (verify) option setcap sets the
       capabilities of each specified filename to the capabilities
       specified.  The optional -n <rootuid> argument can be used to set
       the file capability for use only in a user namespace with this
       root user ID owner. The -v option is used to verify that the
       specified capabilities are currently associated with the file. If
       -v and -n are supplied, the -n <rootuid> argument is also
       verified.

       The capabilities are specified in the form described in
       cap_from_text(3).

       The special capability string, '-', can be used to indicate that
       capabilities are read from the standard input. In such cases, the
       capability set is terminated with a blank line.

       The special capability string, '-r', is used to remove a
       capability set from a file. Note, setting an empty capability set
       is not the same as removing it. An empty set can be used to
       guarantee a file is not executed with privilege in spite of the
       fact that the prevailing ambient+inheritable sets would otherwise
       bestow capabilities on executed binaries.

       The '-f', is used to force completion even when it is in some way
       considered an invalid operation. This can affect '-r' and setting
       file capabilities the kernel will not be able to make sense of.

       The -q flag is used to make the program less verbose in its
       output.

EXIT CODE         top

       The setcap program will exit with a 0 exit code if successful. On
       failure, the exit code is 1.

REPORTING BUGS         top

       Please report bugs via:

       https://bugzilla.kernel.org/buglist.cgi?component=libcap&list_id=1090757

SEE ALSO         top

       capsh(1), cap_from_text(3), cap_get_file(3), capabilities(7),
       user_namespaces(7), captree(8), getcap(8) and getpcaps(8).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the libcap (capabilities commands and
       library) project.  Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/libs/libcap/libcap.git/⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, send it to
       morgan@kernel.org (please put "libcap" in the Subject line).
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/libs/libcap/libcap.git/⟩ on
       2023-12-22.  (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
       that was found in the repository was 2023-06-24.)  If you
       discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
       or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for
       the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
       information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original
       manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

                               2020-08-29                      SETCAP(8)

Pages that refer to this page: capsh(1)cap_iab(3)libcap(3)capabilities(7)getcap(8)getpcaps(8)