Synopsis

#include <unistd.h>

extern char **environ;

int execl(const char *path, const char *arg0, ... /*, (char *)0 */);

int execle(const char *path, const char *arg0, (char *)0, char *const envp[]/*);

int execlp(const char *file, const char *arg0, ... /*, (char *)0 */);

int execv(const char *path, char *const argv[]);

int execve(const char *path, char *const argv[], char *const envp[]);

int execvp(const char *file, char *const argv[]);

int fexecve(int fd, char *const argv[], char *const envp[]);

Status

Partially implemented

Conformance

IEEE Std 1003.1-2017

Description

The exec family of functions shall replace the current process image with a new process image. The new image shall be constructed from a regular, executable file called the new process image file. There shall be no return from a successful exec, because the calling process image is overlaid by the new process image.

The fexecve() function shall be equivalent to the execve() function except that the file to be executed is determined by the file descriptor fd instead of a pathname. The file offset of fd is ignored.

When a C-language program is executed as a result of a call to one of the exec family of functions, it shall be entered as a C-language function call as follows:

int main (int argc, char *argv[]);

where argc is the argument count and argv is an array of character pointers to the arguments themselves. In addition, the following variable, which must be declared by the user if it is to be used directly:

extern char **environ;

is initialized as a pointer to an array of character pointers to the environment strings. The argv and environ arrays are each terminated by a null pointer. The null pointer terminating the argv array is not counted in argc.

Applications can change the entire environment in a single operation by assigning the environ variable to point to an array of character pointers to the new environment strings. After assigning a new value to environ, applications should not rely on the new environment strings remaining part of the environment, as a call to getenv(), putenv(), setenv(), unsetenv(), or any function that is dependent on an environment variable may, on noticing that environ has changed, copy the environment strings to a new array and assign environ to point to it.

Any application that directly modifies the pointers to which the environ variable points has undefined behavior.

Conforming multi-threaded applications shall not use the environ variable to access or modify any environment variable while any other thread is concurrently modifying any environment variable. A call to any function dependent on any environment variable shall be considered a use of the environ variable to access that environment variable.

The arguments specified by a program with one of the exec functions shall be passed on to the new process image in the corresponding main() arguments.

The argument path points to a pathname that identifies the new process image file.

The argument file is used to construct a pathname that identifies the new process image file. If the file argument contains a <slash> character, the file argument shall be used as the pathname for this file. Otherwise, the path prefix for this file is obtained by a search of the directories passed as the environment variable PATH (see XBD Environment Variables). If this environment variable is not present, the results of the search are implementation-defined.

There are two distinct ways in which the contents of the process image file may cause the execution to fail, distinguished by the setting of errno to either ENOEXEC or EINVAL (see the ERRORS section). In the cases where the other members of the exec family of functions would fail and set errno to ENOEXEC, the execlp() and execvp() functions shall execute a command interpreter and the environment of the executed command shall be as if the process invoked the sh utility using execl() as follows:

execl(<shell path>, arg0, file, arg1, ..., (char *)0);

where <shell path> is an unspecified pathname for the sh utility, file is the process image file, and for execvp(), where arg0, arg1, and so on correspond to the values passed to execvp() in argv[0], argv[1], and so on.

The arguments represented by arg0,... are pointers to null-terminated character strings. These strings shall constitute the argument list available to the new process image. The list is terminated by a null pointer. The argument arg0 should point to a filename string that is associated with the process being started by one of the exec functions.

The argument argv is an array of character pointers to null-terminated strings. The application shall ensure that the last member of this array is a null pointer. These strings shall constitute the argument list available to the new process image.

The value in argv[0] should point to a filename string that is associated with the process being started by one of the exec functions.

The argument envp is an array of character pointers to null-terminated strings. These strings shall constitute the environment for the new process image. The envp array is terminated by a null pointer.

For those forms not containing an envp pointer (execl(), execv(), execlp(), and execvp()), the environment for the new process image shall be taken from the external variable environ in the calling process.

The number of bytes available for the new process' combined argument and environment lists is ARG_MAX. It is implementation-defined whether null terminators, pointers, and/or any alignment bytes are included in this total.

File descriptors open in the calling process image shall remain open in the new process image, except for those whose close-on- exec flag FD_CLOEXEC is set. For those file descriptors that remain open, all attributes of the open file description remain unchanged. For any file descriptor that is closed for this reason, file locks are removed as a result of the close as described in close(). Locks that are not removed by closing of file descriptors remain unchanged.

If file descriptor 0, 1, or 2 would otherwise be closed after a successful call to one of the exec family of functions, implementations may open an unspecified file for the file descriptor in the new process image. If a standard utility or a conforming application is executed with file descriptor 0 not open for reading or with file descriptor 1 or 2 not open for writing, the environment in which the utility or application is executed shall be deemed non-conforming, and consequently the utility or application might not behave as described in this standard.

Directory streams open in the calling process image shall be closed in the new process image.

The state of the floating-point environment in the initial thread of the new process image shall be set to the default.

The state of conversion descriptors and message catalog descriptors in the new process image is undefined.

For the new process image, the equivalent of:

setlocale(LC_ALL, "C")

shall be executed at start-up.

Signals set to the default action (SIG_DFL) in the calling process image shall be set to the default action in the new process image. Except for SIGCHLD, signals set to be ignored (SIG_IGN) by the calling process image shall be set to be ignored by the new process image. Signals set to be caught by the calling process image shall be set to the default action in the new process image (see <signal.h>).

If the SIGCHLD signal is set to be ignored by the calling process image, it is unspecified whether the SIGCHLD signal is set to be ignored or to the default action in the new process image. After a successful call to any of the exec functions, alternate signal stacks are not preserved and the SA_ONSTACK flag shall be cleared for all signals. After a successful call to any of the exec functions, any functions previously registered by the atexit() or pthread_atfork() functions are no longer registered. If the ST_NOSUID bit is set for the file system containing the new process image file, then the effective user ID, effective group ID, saved set-user-ID, and saved set-group-ID are unchanged in the new process image. Otherwise, if the set-user-ID mode bit of the new process image file is set, the effective user ID of the new process image shall be set to the user ID of the new process image file. Similarly, if the set-group-ID mode bit of the new process image file is set, the effective group ID of the new process image shall be set to the group ID of the new process image file. The real user ID, real group ID, and supplementary group IDs of the new process image shall remain the same as those of the calling process image. The effective user ID and effective group ID of the new process image shall be saved (as the saved set-user-ID and the saved set-group-ID) for use by setuid(). Any shared memory segments attached to the calling process image shall not be attached to the new process image. Any named semaphores open in the calling process shall be closed as if by appropriate calls to sem_close(). Any blocks of typed memory that were mapped in the calling process are unmapped, as if munmap() was implicitly called to unmap them. Memory locks established by the calling process via calls to mlockall() or mlock() shall be removed. If locked pages in the address space of the calling process are also mapped into the address spaces of other processes and are locked by those processes, the locks established by the other processes shall be unaffected by the call by this process to the exec function. If the exec function fails, the effect on memory locks is unspecified. Memory mappings created in the process are unmapped before the address space is rebuilt for the new process image.

When the calling process image does not use the SCHED_FIFO, SCHED_RR, or SCHED_SPORADIC  scheduling policies, the scheduling policy and parameters of the new process image and the initial thread in that new process image are implementation-defined. When the calling process image uses the SCHED_FIFO, SCHED_RR, or SCHED_SPORADIC scheduling policies, the process policy and scheduling parameter settings shall not be changed by a call to an exec function. The initial thread in the new process image shall inherit the process scheduling policy and parameters. It shall have the default system contention scope, but shall inherit its allocation domain from the calling process image. Per-process timers created by the calling process shall be deleted before replacing the current process image with the new process image. All open message queue descriptors in the calling process shall be closed, as described in mq_close(). Any outstanding asynchronous I/O operations may be canceled. Those asynchronous I/O operations that are not canceled shall complete as if the exec function had not yet occurred, but any associated signal notifications shall be suppressed. It is unspecified whether the exec function itself blocks awaiting such I/O completion. In no event, however, shall the new process image created by the exec function be affected by the presence of outstanding asynchronous I/O operations at the time the exec function is called. Whether any I/O is canceled, and which I/O may be canceled upon exec, is implementation-defined. The new process image shall inherit the CPU-time clock of the calling process image. This inheritance means that the process CPU-time clock of the process being exec-ed shall not be reinitialized or altered as a result of the exec function other than to reflect the time spent by the process executing the exec function itself. The initial value of the CPU-time clock of the initial thread of the new process image shall be set to zero. If the calling process is being traced, the new process image shall continue to be traced into the same trace stream as the original process image, but the new process image shall not inherit the mapping of trace event names to trace event type identifiers that was defined by calls to the posix_trace_eventid_open() or the posix_trace_trid_eventid_open() functions in the calling process image.

If the calling process is a trace controller process, any trace streams that were created by the calling process shall be shut down as described in the posix_trace_shutdown() function. The thread ID of the initial thread in the new process image is unspecified.

The size and location of the stack on which the initial thread in the new process image runs is unspecified.

The initial thread in the new process image shall have its cancellation type set to PTHREAD_CANCEL_DEFERRED and its cancellation state set to PTHREAD_CANCEL_ENABLED.

The initial thread in the new process image shall have all thread-specific data values set to null and all thread-specific data keys shall be removed by the call to exec without running destructors.

The initial thread in the new process image shall be joinable, as if created with the detachstate attribute set to PTHREAD_CREATE_JOINABLE.

The new process shall inherit at least the following attributes from the calling process image:

• Nice value (see nice())

• semadj values (see semop())

• Process ID

• Parent process ID

• Process group ID

• Session membership

• Real user ID

• Real group ID

• Supplementary group IDs

• Time left until an alarm clock signal (see alarm())

• Current working directory

• Root directory

• File mode creation mask (see umask())

• File size limit (see getrlimit() and setrlimit())

• Process signal mask (see pthread_sigmask())

• Pending signal (see sigpending())

• tms_utime, tms_stime, tms_cutime, and tms_cstime (see times())

• Resource limits

• Controlling terminal

• Interval timers

The initial thread of the new process shall inherit at least the following attributes from the calling thread:

• Signal mask (see sigprocmask() and pthread_sigmask())

• Pending signals (see sigpending())

All other process attributes defined in this volume of POSIX.1-2017 shall be inherited in the new process image from the old process image. All other thread attributes defined in this volume of POSIX.1-2017 shall be inherited in the initial thread in the new process image from the calling thread in the old process image. The inheritance of process or thread attributes not defined by this volume of POSIX.1-2017 is implementation-defined.

A call to any exec function from a process with more than one thread shall result in all threads being terminated and the new executable image being loaded and executed. No destructor functions or cleanup handlers shall be called.

Upon successful completion, the exec functions shall mark for update the last data access timestamp of the file. If an exec function failed but was able to locate the process image file, whether the last data access timestamp is marked for update is unspecified. Should the exec function succeed, the process image file shall be considered to have been opened with open(). The corresponding close() shall be considered to occur at a time after this open, but before process termination or successful completion of a subsequent call to one of the exec functions, posix_spawn(), or posix_spawnp(). The argv[] and envp[] arrays of pointers and the strings to which those arrays point shall not be modified by a call to one of the exec functions, except as a consequence of replacing the process image.

The saved resource limits in the new process image are set to be a copy of the process' corresponding hard and soft limits.

Return value

If one of the exec functions returns to the calling process image, an error has occurred; the return value shall be -1, and errno shall be set to indicate the error.

Errors

The exec functions shall fail if:

• E2BIG - The number of bytes used by the new process image's argument list and environment list is greater than the system-imposed limit of ARG_MAX bytes.

• EACCES - The new process image file is not a regular file and the implementation does not support execution of files of its type.

• EINVAL - The new process image file has appropriate privileges and has a recognized executable binary format, but the system does not support execution of a file with this format.

The exec functions, except for fexecve(), shall fail if:

• EACCES - Search permission is denied for a directory listed in the new process image file's path prefix, or the new process image file denies execution permission.

• ELOOP - A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during resolution of the path or file argument. ENAMETOOLONG

The length of a component of a pathname is longer than NAME_MAX.

• ENOENT - A component of path or file does not name an existing file or path or file is an empty string.

• ENOTDIR - A component of the new process image file's path prefix names an existing file that is neither a directory nor a symbolic link to a directory, or the new process image file's pathname contains at least one non- character and ends with one or more trailing characters and the last pathname component names an existing file that is neither a directory nor a symbolic link to a directory.

The exec functions, except for execlp() and execvp(), shall fail if:

• ENOEXEC - The new process image file has the appropriate access permission but has an unrecognized format.

The fexecve() function shall fail if:

• EBADF - The fd argument is not a valid file descriptor open for executing.

The exec functions may fail if:

• ENOMEM - The new process image requires more memory than is allowed by the hardware or system-imposed memory management constraints.

The exec functions, except for fexecve(), may fail if:

• ELOOP - More than SYMLOOP_MAX symbolic links were encountered during resolution of the path or file argument.

• ENAMETOOLONG - The length of the path argument or the length of the pathname constructed from the file argument exceeds PATH_MAX, or pathname resolution of a symbolic link produced an intermediate result with a length that exceeds PATH_MAX.

• ETXTBSY - The new process image file is a pure procedure (shared text) file that is currently open for writing by some process.

Tests

Untested

Known bugs

None

See Also

1. Standard library functions
2. Table of Contents