.\"
.\" Copyright (C) 2014 Red Hat, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
.\" Written by David Howells (dhowells@redhat.com)
.\"
.\" This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
.\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence
.\" as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
.\" 2 of the Licence, or (at your option) any later version.
.\"
.TH KEYUTILS 7 "21 Feb 2014" Linux "Kernel key management"
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.SH NAME
keyutils \- in-kernel key management utilities
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.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.B keyutils
package is a library and a set of utilities for accessing the kernel
\fBkeyrings\fP facility.
.P
A header file is supplied to provide the definitions and declarations required
to access the library:
.P
.RS
.B #include <keyutils.h>
.RE
.P
To link with the library, the following:
.P
.RS
.B \-lkeyutils
.RE
.P
should be specified to the linker.
.P
Three system calls are provided:
.TP
.BR add_key (2)
Supply a new key to the kernel.
.TP
.BR request_key (2)
Find an existing key for use, or, optionally, create one if one does not exist.
.TP
.BR keyctl (2)
Control a key in various ways.  The library provides a variety of wrappers
around this system call and those should be used rather than calling it
directly.
.P
See the
.BR add_key (2),
.BR request_key (2),
and
.BR keyctl (2)
manual pages for more information.
.P
The \fBkeyctl\fP() wrappers are listed on the
.BR keyctl (3)
manual page.
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.SH UTILITIES
.P
A program is provided to interact with the kernel facility by a number of
subcommands, e.g.:
.P
.RS
.B keyctl add user foo bar @s
.RE
.P
See the
.BR keyctl (1)
manual page for information on that.
.P
The kernel has the ability to upcall to userspace to fabricate new keys.  This
can be triggered by \fBrequest_key\fP(), but userspace is better off using
\fBadd_key\fP() instead if it possibly can.
.P
The upcalling mechanism is usually routed via the
.BR request\-key (8)
program.  What this does with any particular key is configurable in:
.P
.RS
.I /etc/request\-key.conf
.br
.I /etc/request\-key.d/
.RE
.P
See the
.BR request\-key.conf (5)
and the
.BR request\-key (8)
manual pages for more information.
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.SH SEE ALSO
.ad l
.nh
.BR keyctl (1),
.BR keyctl (3),
.BR keyrings (7),
.BR persistent\-keyring (7),
.BR process\-keyring (7),
.BR session\-keyring (7),
.BR thread\-keyring (7),
.BR user\-keyring (7),
.BR user\-session\-keyring (7),
.BR pam_keyinit (8)