PR_SET_PTRACER(2const) — Linux manual page

PR_SET_PTRACER(2const)                             PR_SET_PTRACER(2const)

NAME         top

       PR_SET_PTRACER - allow processes to ptrace(2) the calling process

LIBRARY         top

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <linux/prctl.h>  /* Definition of PR_* constants */
       #include <sys/prctl.h>

       int prctl(PR_SET_PTRACER, long pid);

DESCRIPTION         top

       This is meaningful only when the Yama LSM is enabled and in mode 1
       ("restricted ptrace", visible via /proc/sys/kernel/yama/
       ptrace_scope).

       When a "ptracer process ID" is passed in pid, the caller is
       declaring that the ptracer process can ptrace(2) the calling
       process as if it were a direct process ancestor.

       Each PR_SET_PTRACER operation replaces the previous "ptracer
       process ID".

       Employing PR_SET_PTRACER with pid set to 0 clears the caller's
       "ptracer process ID".  If pid is PR_SET_PTRACER_ANY, the ptrace
       restrictions introduced by Yama are effectively disabled for the
       calling process.

RETURN VALUE         top

       On success, 0 is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
       set to indicate the error.

ERRORS         top

       EINVAL pid is not 0, PR_SET_PTRACER_ANY, nor the PID of an
              existing process.

STANDARDS         top

       Linux.

HISTORY         top

       Linux 3.4.

SEE ALSO         top

       prctl(2),

       For further information, see the kernel source file Documentation/
       admin-guide/LSM/Yama.rst (or Documentation/security/Yama.txt
       before Linux 4.13).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the man-pages (Linux kernel and C library
       user-space interface documentation) project.  Information about
       the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTING⟩.
       This page was obtained from the tarball man-pages-6.15.tar.gz
       fetched from
       ⟨https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/⟩ on
       2025-08-11.  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

Linux man-pages 6.15            2025-05-17         PR_SET_PTRACER(2const)

Pages that refer to this page: setpriv(1),  prctl(2)

HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH.