rcmd(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ATTRIBUTES | STANDARDS | HISTORY | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

rcmd(3)                  Library Functions Manual                 rcmd(3)

NAME         top

       rcmd, rresvport, iruserok, ruserok, rcmd_af, rresvport_af,
       iruserok_af, ruserok_af - routines for returning a stream to a
       remote command

LIBRARY         top

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <netdb.h>    /* Or <unistd.h> on some systems */

       int rcmd(char **restrict ahost, unsigned short inport,
                   const char *restrict locuser,
                   const char *restrict remuser,
                   const char *restrict cmd, int *restrict fd2p);

       int rresvport(int *port);

       int iruserok(uint32_t raddr, int superuser,
                   const char *ruser, const char *luser);
       int ruserok(const char *rhost, int superuser,
                   const char *ruser, const char *luser);

       int rcmd_af(char **restrict ahost, unsigned short inport,
                   const char *restrict locuser,
                   const char *restrict remuser,
                   const char *restrict cmd, int *restrict fd2p,
                   sa_family_t af);

       int rresvport_af(int *port, sa_family_t af);

       int iruserok_af(const void *restrict raddr, int superuser,
                   const char *restrict ruser, const char *restrict luser,
                   sa_family_t af);
       int ruserok_af(const char *rhost, int superuser,
                   const char *ruser, const char *luser,
                   sa_family_t af);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
   feature_test_macros(7)):

       rcmd(), rcmd_af(), rresvport(), rresvport_af(), iruserok(),
       iruserok_af(), ruserok(), ruserok_af():
           Since glibc 2.19:
               _DEFAULT_SOURCE
           glibc 2.19 and earlier:
               _BSD_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION         top

       The  rcmd() function is used by the superuser to execute a command
       on a remote  machine  using  an  authentication  scheme  based  on
       privileged  port numbers.  The rresvport() function returns a file
       descriptor to a socket with an  address  in  the  privileged  port
       space.  The iruserok() and ruserok() functions are used by servers
       to  authenticate clients requesting service with rcmd().  All four
       functions are used by the rshd(8) server (among others).

   rcmd()
       The   rcmd()   function   looks   up   the   host   *ahost   using
       gethostbyname(3),  returning  -1  if  the  host  does  not  exist.
       Otherwise, *ahost is set to the standard name of the  host  and  a
       connection  is  established to a server residing at the well-known
       Internet port inport.

       If the connection succeeds, a socket in  the  Internet  domain  of
       type  SOCK_STREAM  is  returned  to  the  caller, and given to the
       remote command as stdin and stdout.  If fd2p is nonzero,  then  an
       auxiliary  channel to a control process will be set up, and a file
       descriptor for it will be placed in *fd2p.   The  control  process
       will  return  diagnostic  output from the command (unit 2) on this
       channel, and will also accept bytes on this channel as being  UNIX
       signal  numbers,  to  be  forwarded  to  the  process group of the
       command.  If fd2p is 0, then the stderr  (unit  2  of  the  remote
       command)  will  be made the same as the stdout and no provision is
       made for sending arbitrary signals to the remote process, although
       you may be able to get its attention by using out-of-band data.

       The protocol is described in detail in rshd(8).

   rresvport()
       The rresvport() function  is  used  to  obtain  a  socket  with  a
       privileged  port  bound to it.  This socket is suitable for use by
       rcmd() and several other functions.  Privileged ports are those in
       the range 0 to 1023.  Only  a  privileged  process  (on  Linux,  a
       process  that  has the CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE capability in the user
       namespace governing its network namespace) is allowed to bind to a
       privileged port.   In  the  glibc  implementation,  this  function
       restricts  its  search  to  the  ports from 512 to 1023.  The port
       argument is value-result: the value it supplies  to  the  call  is
       used  as  the  starting  point  for  a circular search of the port
       range; on (successful) return, it contains the  port  number  that
       was bound to.

   iruserok() and ruserok()
       The  iruserok()  and  ruserok()  functions take a remote host's IP
       address or name, respectively, two usernames and a flag indicating
       whether the local user's name is that of the superuser.  Then,  if
       the  user  is  not  the  superuser, it checks the /etc/hosts.equiv
       file.  If that lookup is not done, or is unsuccessful, the .rhosts
       in the local user's home  directory  is  checked  to  see  if  the
       request for service is allowed.

       If  this  file  does not exist, is not a regular file, is owned by
       anyone other than the user or the superuser, is writable by anyone
       other than  the  owner,  or  is  hardlinked  anywhere,  the  check
       automatically  fails.   Zero  is  returned  if the machine name is
       listed in the hosts.equiv file, or the host  and  remote  username
       are  found in the .rhosts file; otherwise iruserok() and ruserok()
       return -1.  If the local domain (as obtained from  gethostname(2))
       is  the  same  as the remote domain, only the machine name need be
       specified.

       If the IP address of the remote host is known,  iruserok()  should
       be  used  in  preference  to  ruserok(),  as  it  does not require
       trusting the DNS server for the remote host's domain.

   *_af() variants
       All of the functions described  above  work  with  IPv4  (AF_INET)
       sockets.   The  "_af"  variants take an extra argument that allows
       the socket address family to be specified.  For  these  functions,
       the  af  argument  can  be  specified  as AF_INET or AF_INET6.  In
       addition, rcmd_af() supports the use of AF_UNSPEC.

RETURN VALUE         top

       The rcmd() function returns a valid socket descriptor on  success.
       It  returns  -1  on  error  and prints a diagnostic message on the
       standard error.

       The rresvport() function returns a valid, bound socket  descriptor
       on  success.  On failure, it returns -1 and sets errno to indicate
       the error.  The error code EAGAIN  is  overloaded  to  mean:  "All
       network ports in use".

       For  information  on the return from ruserok() and iruserok(), see
       above.

ATTRIBUTES         top

       For an  explanation  of  the  terms  used  in  this  section,  see
       attributes(7).
       ┌───────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────┐
       │ Interface                     Attribute     Value          │
       ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤
       │ rcmd(), rcmd_af()             │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe      │
       ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤
       │ rresvport(), rresvport_af()   │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe        │
       ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤
       │ iruserok(), ruserok(),        │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe locale │
       │ iruserok_af(), ruserok_af()   │               │                │
       └───────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────┘

STANDARDS         top

       BSD.

HISTORY         top

       iruserok_af()
       rcmd_af()
       rresvport_af()
       ruserok_af()
              glibc 2.2.

       Solaris, 4.2BSD.  The "_af" variants are more recent additions,
       and are not present on as wide a range of systems.

BUGS         top

       iruserok() and iruserok_af() are declared in glibc headers only
       since glibc 2.12.

SEE ALSO         top

       rlogin(1), rsh(1), rexec(3), rexecd(8), rlogind(8), rshd(8)

COLOPHON         top

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Linux man-pages 6.10            2024-07-23                        rcmd(3)

Pages that refer to this page: rexec(3)