setpriv - run a program with different Linux privilege settings at Linux.org

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SETPRIV(1) User Commands SETPRIV(1)

NAME
setpriv - run a program with different Linux privilege settings

SYNOPSIS
setpriv [options] program [arguments]

DESCRIPTION
Sets or queries various Linux privilege settings that are inherited across execve(2).

OPTION
-d, --dump
Dumps current privilege state. Specify more than once to show extra, mostly useless, information.
Incompatible with all other options.

--no-new-privs
Sets the no_new_privs bit. With this bit set, execve(2) will not grant new privileges. For example,
the setuid and setgid bits as well as file capabilities will be disabled. (Executing binaries with
these bits set will still work, but they will not gain privilege. Certain LSMs, especially AppArmor,
may result in failures to execute certain programs.) This bit is inherited by child processes and can‐
not be unset. See prctl(2) and Documentation/prctl/no_new_privs.txt in the Linux kernel source.

The no_new_privs bit is supported since Linux 3.5.

--inh-caps (+|-)cap,... or --bounding-set (+|-)cap,...
Sets inheritable capabilities or capability bounding set. See capabilities(7). The argument is a
comma-separated list of +cap and -cap entries, which add or remove an entry respectively. +all and
-all can be used to add or remove all caps. The set of capabilities starts out as the current inheri‐
table set for --inh-caps and the current bounding set for --bounding-set. If you drop something from
the bounding set without also dropping it from the inheritable set, you are likely to become confused.
Do not do that.

--list-caps
Lists all known capabilities. Must be specified alone.

--ruid uid, --euid uid, --reuid uid
Sets the real, effective, or both uids.

Setting uid or gid does not change capabilities, although the exec call at the end might change capa‐
bilities. This means that, if you are root, you probably want to do something like:

--reuid=1000 --regid=1000 --caps=-all

--rgid gid, --egid gid, --regid gid
Sets the real, effective, or both gids.

For safety, you must specify one of --keep-groups, --clear-groups, or --groups if you set any primary
gid.

--clear-groups
Clears supplementary groups.

--keep-groups
Preserves supplementary groups. Only useful in conjunction with --rgid, --egid, or --regid.

--groups group,...
Sets supplementary groups.
Requests a particular AppArmor profile (using a transition on exec). This will fail and cause set‐
priv(1) to abort if AppArmor is not in use, and the transition may be ignored or cause execve(2) to
fail at AppArmor's whim.

-V, --version
Display version information and exit.

-h, --help
Display help and exit.

NOTES
If applying any specified option fails, program will not be run and setpriv will return with exit code 127.

Be careful with this tool -- it may have unexpected security consequences. For example, setting no_new_privs
and then execing a program that is SELinux-confined (as this tool would do) may prevent the SELinux restric‐
tions from taking effect.