USER-SESSION-KEYRING(7) Linux Programmer's Manual USER-SESSION-KEYRING(7)
NAME
user-session-keyring - per-user default session keyring
DESCRIPTION
The user session keyring is a keyring used to anchor keys on behalf of a user. Each UID
the kernel deals with has its own user session keyring that is shared by all processes
with that UID. The user session keyring has a name (description) of the form
_uid_ses.<UID> where <UID> is the user ID of the corresponding user.
The user session keyring is associated with the record that the kernel maintains for the
UID. It comes into existence upon the first attempt to access either the user session
keyring, the user-keyring(7), or the session-keyring(7). The keyring remains pinned in
existence so long as there are processes running with that real UID or files opened by
those processes remain open. (The keyring can also be pinned indefinitely by linking it
into another keyring.)
The user session keyring is created on demand when a thread requests it or when a thread
asks for its session-keyring(7) and that keyring doesn't exist. In the latter case, a
user session keyring will be created and, if the session keyring wasn't to be created, the
user session keyring will be set as the process's actual session keyring.
The user session keyring is searched by request_key(2) if the actual session keyring does
not exist and is ignored otherwise.
A special serial number value, KEY_SPEC_USER_SESSION_KEYRING, is defined that can be used
in lieu of the actual serial number of the calling process's user session keyring.
From the keyctl(1) utility, '@us' can be used instead of a numeric key ID in much the same
way.
User session keyrings are independent of clone(2), fork(2), vfork(2), execve(2), and
_exit(2) excepting that the keyring is destroyed when the UID record is destroyed when the
last process pinning it exits.
If a user session keyring does not exist when it is accessed, it will be created.
Rather than relying on the user session keyring, it is strongly recommended--especially if
the process is running as root--that a session-keyring(7) be set explicitly, for example
by pam_keyinit(8).
NOTES
The user session keyring was added to support situations where a process doesn't have a
session keyring, perhaps because it was created via a pathway that didn't involve PAM
(e.g., perhaps it was a daemon started by inetd(8)). In such a scenario, the user session
keyring acts as a substitute for the session-keyring(7).
SEE ALSO
keyctl(1), keyctl(3), keyrings(7), persistent-keyring(7), process-keyring(7),
session-keyring(7), thread-keyring(7), user-keyring(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the
project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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