REVOKE(2)

NAME
revoke - revoke file access

LIBRARY
libc

SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int
revoke(const char *path);

DESCRIPTION
The revoke() function invalidates all current open file descriptors in the system for the file named by path. Subsequent operations on any such descriptors fail, with the exceptions that a read(2) from a character device file which has been revoked returns a count of zero (end of file), and a close(2) call will succeed. If the file is a special file for a device which is open, the device close function is called as if all open references to the file had been closed.

Access to a file may be revoked only by its owner or the super user.

The revoke() function is normally used to prepare a terminal device for a new login session, preventing any access by a previous user of the terminal.

RETURN VALUES
A 0 value indicates that the call succeeded. A -1 return value indicates an error occurred and errno is set to indicate the reason.

ERRORS
Access to the named file is revoked unless one of the following:

[EACCES]
    Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.

[EFAULT]
    path points outside the process's allocated address space.

[ELOOP]
    Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.

[ENAMETOOLONG]
    A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters.

[ENOENT]
    The named file or a component of the path name does not exist.

[ENOTDIR]
    A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

[EPERM]
    The caller is neither the owner of the file nor the super user.

SEE ALSO
close(2), dup(2), fcntl(2), flock(2), fstat(2), read(2), write(2)

HISTORY
The revoke() function was introduced in 4.3BSD Reno.