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CHFLAGS(2)                    System Calls Manual                   CHFLAGS(2)

NAME
     chflags, lchflags, fchflags - set file flags

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/stat.h>
     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     chflags(const char *path, u_long flags);

     int
     lchflags(const char *path, u_long flags);

     int
     fchflags(int fd, u_long flags);

DESCRIPTION
     The file whose name is given by path or referenced by the descriptor fd
     has its flags changed to flags.  For lchflags(), symbolic links are not
     traversed and thus their modes may be changed with this call.

     The flags specified are formed by or'ing the following values:

           UF_NODUMP     Do not dump the file.
           UF_IMMUTABLE  The file may not be changed.
           UF_APPEND     The file may only be appended to.
           UF_OPAQUE     The file (if a directory) is opaque for union mounts.
           SF_ARCHIVED   The file is archived.
           SF_IMMUTABLE  The file may not be changed.
           SF_APPEND     The file may only be appended to.

     The UF_NODUMP, UF_IMMUTABLE, UF_APPEND, and UF_OPAQUE flags may be set or
     unset by either the owner of a file or the super-user, except on block
     and character devices, where only the super-user may set or unset them.

     The SF_ARCHIVED, SF_IMMUTABLE, and SF_APPEND flags may only be set or
     unset by the super-user.  These flags may be set at any time, but
     normally may only be unset when the system is in single-user mode.  (See
     init(8) for details.)

RETURN VALUES
     Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Otherwise, -1 is
     returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
     chflags() will fail if:

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

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

     [ENOENT]           The named file does not exist.

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

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

     [EPERM]            The effective user ID does not match the owner of the
                        file and the effective user ID is not the super-user,
                        or the effective user ID is not the super-user and one
                        or more of the super-user-only flags for the named
                        file would be changed.

     [EOPNOTSUPP]       The named file resides on a file system that does not
                        support file flags.

     [EROFS]            The named file resides on a read-only file system.

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

     [EIO]              An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to
                        the file system.

     fchflags() will fail if:

     [EBADF]            The descriptor is not valid.

     [EINVAL]           fd refers to a socket, not to a file.

     [EPERM]            The effective user ID does not match the owner of the
                        file and the effective user ID is not the super-user,
                        or the effective user ID is not the super-user and one
                        or more of the super-user-only flags for the file
                        would be changed.

     [EOPNOTSUPP]       The file resides on a file system that does not
                        support file flags.

     [EROFS]            The file resides on a read-only file system.

     [EIO]              An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to
                        the file system.

SEE ALSO
     chflags(1), stat(2), stat_flags(3), init(8), mount_union(8)

HISTORY
     The chflags() and fchflags() functions first appeared in 4.4BSD.  The
     lchflags() function first appeared in NetBSD 1.5.

NetBSD 10.99                    August 6, 2011                    NetBSD 10.99