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+.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993
+.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
+.\"
+.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
+.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
+.\" are met:
+.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
+.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
+.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
+.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
+.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
+.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
+.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
+.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
+.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
+.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
+.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
+.\" without specific prior written permission.
+.\"
+.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
+.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
+.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
+.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
+.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
+.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
+.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
+.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
+.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
+.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
+.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
+.\"
+.\" @(#)execve.2 8.3 (Berkeley) 1/24/94
+.\"
+.Dd January 24, 1994
+.Dt EXECVE 2
+.Os BSD 4
+.Sh NAME
+.Nm execve
+.Nd execute a file
+.Sh SYNOPSIS
+.Fd #include <unistd.h>
+.Ft int
+.Fn execve "const char *path" "char *const argv[]" "char *const envp[]"
+.Sh DESCRIPTION
+.Fn Execve
+transforms the calling process into a new process.
+The new process is constructed from an ordinary file,
+whose name is pointed to by
+.Fa path ,
+called the
+.Em new process file .
+This file is either an executable object file,
+or a file of data for an interpreter.
+An executable object file consists of an identifying header,
+followed by pages of data representing the initial program (text)
+and initialized data pages. Additional pages may be specified
+by the header to be initialized with zero data; see
+.Xr a.out 5 .
+.Pp
+An interpreter file begins with a line of the form:
+.Pp
+.Bd -filled -offset indent -compact
+.Sy \&#!
+.Em interpreter
+.Bq Em arg
+.Ed
+.Pp
+When an interpreter file is
+.Fn execve Ap d ,
+the system
+.Fn execve Ap s
+runs the specified
+.Em interpreter .
+If the optional
+.Em arg
+is specified, it becomes the first argument to the
+.Em interpreter ,
+and the name of the originally
+.Fn execve Ap d
+file becomes the second argument;
+otherwise, the name of the originally
+.Fn execve Ap d
+file becomes the first argument. The original arguments are shifted over to
+become the subsequent arguments. The zeroth argument, normally the name of the
+.Fn execve Ap d
+file, is left unchanged.
+.Pp
+The argument
+.Fa argv
+is a pointer to a null-terminated array of
+character pointers to null-terminated character strings.
+These strings construct the argument list to be made available to the new
+process. At least one argument must be present in
+the array; by custom, the first element should be
+the name of the executed program (for example, the last component of
+.Fa path ) .
+.Pp
+The argument
+.Fa envp
+is also a pointer to a null-terminated array of
+character pointers to null-terminated strings.
+A pointer to this array is normally stored in the global variable
+.Va environ.
+These strings pass information to the
+new process that is not directly an argument to the command (see
+.Xr environ 7 ) .
+.Pp
+File descriptors open in the calling process image remain open in
+the new process image, except for those for which the close-on-exec
+flag is set (see
+.Xr close 2
+and
+.Xr fcntl 2 ) .
+Descriptors that remain open are unaffected by
+.Fn execve .
+.Pp
+Signals set to be ignored in the calling process are set to be ignored in
+the
+new process. Signals which are set to be caught in the calling process image
+are set to default action in the new process image.
+Blocked signals remain blocked regardless of changes to the signal action.
+The signal stack is reset to be undefined (see
+.Xr sigaction 2
+for more information).
+.Pp
+If the set-user-ID mode bit of the new process image file is set
+(see
+.Xr chmod 2 ) ,
+the effective user ID of the new process image is set to the owner ID
+of the new process image file.
+If the set-group-ID mode bit of the new process image file is set,
+the effective group ID of the new process image is set to the group ID
+of the new process image file.
+(The effective group ID is the first element of the group list.)
+The real user ID, real group ID and
+other group IDs of the new process image remain the same as the calling
+process image.
+After any set-user-ID and set-group-ID processing,
+the effective user ID is recorded as the saved set-user-ID,
+and the effective group ID is recorded as the saved set-group-ID.
+These values may be used in changing the effective IDs later (see
+.Xr setuid 2 ) .
+.Pp
+The new process also inherits the following attributes from
+the calling process:
+.Pp
+.Bl -column parent_process_ID -offset indent -compact
+.It process ID Ta see Xr getpid 2
+.It parent process ID Ta see Xr getppid 2
+.It process group ID Ta see Xr getpgrp 2
+.It access groups Ta see Xr getgroups 2
+.It working directory Ta see Xr chdir 2
+.It root directory Ta see Xr chroot 2
+.It control terminal Ta see Xr termios 4
+.It resource usages Ta see Xr getrusage 2
+.It interval timers Ta see Xr getitimer 2
+.It resource limits Ta see Xr getrlimit 2
+.It file mode mask Ta see Xr umask 2
+.It signal mask Ta see Xr sigvec 2 ,
+.Xr sigsetmask 2
+.El
+.Pp
+When a program is executed as a result of an
+.Fn execve
+call, it is entered as follows:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+main(argc, argv, envp)
+int argc;
+char **argv, **envp;
+.Ed
+.Pp
+where
+.Fa argc
+is the number of elements in
+.Fa argv
+(the ``arg count'')
+and
+.Fa argv
+points to the array of character pointers
+to the arguments themselves.
+.Sh RETURN VALUES
+As the
+.Fn execve
+function overlays the current process image
+with a new process image the successful call
+has no process to return to.
+If
+.Fn execve
+does return to the calling process an error has occurred; the
+return value will be -1 and the global variable
+.Va errno
+is set to indicate the error.
+.Sh ERRORS
+.Fn Execve
+will fail and return to the calling process if:
+.Bl -tag -width [ENAMETOOLONG]
+.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
+A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
+.It Bq Er EINVAL
+The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set.
+.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
+A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
+or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
+.It Bq Er ENOENT
+The new process file does not exist.
+.It Bq Er ELOOP
+Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
+.It Bq Er EACCES
+Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
+.It Bq Er EACCES
+The new process file is not an ordinary file.
+.It Bq Er EACCES
+The new process file mode denies execute permission.
+.It Bq Er ENOEXEC
+The new process file has the appropriate access
+permission, but has an invalid magic number in its header.
+.It Bq Er ETXTBSY
+The new process file is a pure procedure (shared text)
+file that is currently open for writing or reading by some process.
+.It Bq Er ENOMEM
+The new process requires more virtual memory than
+is allowed by the imposed maximum
+.Pq Xr getrlimit 2 .
+.It Bq Er E2BIG
+The number of bytes in the new process's argument list
+is larger than the system-imposed limit.
+The limit in the system as released is 20480 bytes
+.Pf ( Dv NCARGS
+in
+.Ao Pa sys/param.h Ac .
+.It Bq Er EFAULT
+The new process file is not as long as indicated by
+the size values in its header.
+.It Bq Er EFAULT
+.Fa Path ,
+.Fa argv ,
+or
+.Fa envp
+point
+to an illegal address.
+.It Bq Er EIO
+An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system.
+.El
+.Sh CAVEAT
+If a program is
+.Em setuid
+to a non-super-user, but is executed when
+the real
+.Em uid
+is ``root'', then the program has some of the powers
+of a super-user as well.
+.Sh SEE ALSO
+.Xr exit 2 ,
+.Xr fork 2 ,
+.Xr execl 3 ,
+.Xr environ 7
+.Sh HISTORY
+The
+.Nm
+function call appeared in
+.Bx 4.2 .
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