path: root/lib/libc/stdio/mktemp.3

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.Dd June 4, 1993
.Dt MKTEMP 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm mktemp
.Nd make temporary file name (unique)
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Fd #include <unistd.h>
.Ft char *
.Fn mktemp "char *template"
.Ft int
.Fn mkstemp "char *template"
.Ft int
.Fn mkstemps "char *template, int suffixlen"
.Ft char *
.Fn mkdtemp "char *template"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn mktemp
function
takes the given file name template and overwrites a portion of it
to create a file name.
This file name is unique and suitable for use
by the application.
The template may be any file name with some number of
.Ql X Ns s
appended
to it, for example
.Pa /tmp/temp.XXXX .
The trailing
.Ql X Ns s
are replaced with the current process number and/or a
unique letter combination.
The number of unique file names
.Fn mktemp
can return depends on the number of
.Ql X Ns s
provided; six
.Ql X Ns s
will
result in
.Fn mktemp
testing roughly 26 ** 6 combinations.
At least 6
.Ql X Ns s
should be used, though 10 is much better.
.Pp
The
.Fn mkstemp
function
makes the same replacement to the template and creates the template file,
mode 0600, returning a file descriptor opened for reading and writing.
This avoids the race between testing for a file's existence and opening it
for use.
.Pp
The
.Fn mkstemps
function acts the same as
.Fn mkstemp ,
except it permits a suffix to exist in the template.  The template
should be of the form
.Pa /tmp/tmpXXXXXXsuffix .
.Fn mkstemps
is told the length of the suffix string, ie. strlen("suffix");
.Pp
The
.Fn mkdtemp
function makes the same replacement to the template as in
.Xr mktemp 3
and creates the template directory, mode 0700.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
The
.Fn mktemp
and
.Fn mkdtemp
functions return a pointer to the template on success and
.Dv NULL
on failure.
The
.Fn mkstemp
function
returns \-1 if no suitable file could be created.
If either call fails an error code is placed in the global variable
.Va errno .
.Sh ERRORS
The
.Fn mkstemp
and
.Fn mkdtemp
functions
may set
.Va errno
to one of the following values:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
The pathname portion of the template is not an existing directory.
.El
.Pp
The
.Fn mkstemp
and
.Fn mkdtemp
functions
may also set
.Va errno
to any value specified by the
.Xr stat 2
function.
.Pp
The
.Fn mkstemp
function
may also set
.Va errno
to any value specified by the
.Xr open 2
function.
.Pp
The
.Fn mkstemps
function
may also set
.Va errno
to any value specified by the
.Xr open 2
function or,
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EINVAL
The suffix length is longer than the template length.
.El
.Pp
The
.Fn mkdtemp
function
may also set
.Va errno
to any value specified by the
.Xr mkdir 2
function.
.Sh BUGS
For
.Fn mktemp
there is an obvious race between file name selection and file
creation and deletion: the program is typically written to call
.Xr tmpnam 3 ,
.Xr tempnam 3 , or Ns
.Fn mktemp .
Subsequently, the program calls
.Xr open 2
or
.Xr fopen 3
and erroneously opens a file (or symbolic link, fifo or other
device) that the attacker has created in the expected file location.
Hence
.Fn mkstemp
is recommended, since it atomically creates the file.
An attacker can guess the filenames produced by
.Fn mktemp .
Whenever it is possible,
.Fn mkstemp
or
.Fn mkdtemp
should be used instead.
.Pp
For this reason,
.Xr ld 8
will output a warning message whenever it links code that uses the
.Fn mktemp .
.Pp
The
.Fn mkdtemp
and
.Fn mkstemps
functions are nonstandard and should not be used if portability
is required.
.Sh EXAMPLES
Quite often a programmer will want to replace a use of
.Fn mktemp
with
.Fn mkstemp ,
usually to avoid the problems described above.
Doing this correctly requires a good understanding of the
code in question.
.Pp
For instance code of this form
.Bd -literal -offset indent
char sfn[15] = "";
FILE *sfp;

strcpy(sfn, "/tmp/ed.XXXXXX");
if (mktemp(sfn) == NULL || (sfp = fopen(sfn, "w+")) == NULL) {
        fprintf(stderr, "%s: %s\n", sfn, strerror(errno));
        return (NULL);
}
return (sfp);
.Ed
.Pp
should be rewritten like this:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
char sfn[15] = "";
FILE *sfp;
int fd = -1;
 
strcpy(sfn, "/tmp/ed.XXXXXX");
if ((fd = mkstemp(sfn)) == -1 ||
    (sfp = fdopen(fd, "w+")) == NULL) {
        if (fd != -1) {
                unlink(sfn);
                close(fd);
        }
        fprintf(stderr, "%s: %s\n", sfn, strerror(errno));
        return (NULL);
}
return (sfp);
.Ed
.Pp
Often one will find code which uses
.Fn mktemp
very early on, perhaps to globally initialize the template nicely, but the
code which calls
.Xr open 2
or
.Xr fopen 3
on that filename will occur much later.
(In almost all cases, the use of
.Xr fopen 3
will mean that the flags
.Dv O_CREAT
|
.Dv O_EXCL
are not given to
.Xr open 2 ,
and thus a symbolic link race becomes possible; hence making
neccessary the use of
.Xr fdopen 3
as seen above).
Furthermore, one must be careful about code which opens, closes, and then
re-opens the file in question.
Finally, one must ensure that upon error the temporary file is
removed correctly.
.Pp
There are also cases where modifying the code to use
.Fn mktemp
in concert with
.Xr open 2
using the flags
.Dv O_CREAT
|
.Dv O_EXCL
is better, as long as the code retries a new template when
.Xr open 2
fails with an errno of
.Dv EEXIST .
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chmod 2 ,
.Xr getpid 2 ,
.Xr mkdir 2 ,
.Xr open 2 ,
.Xr stat 2 ,
.Xr tmpfile 3 ,
.Xr tmpnam 3 ,
.Xr tempnam 3
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Fn mktemp
function appeared in
.At v7 .
.br
The
.Fn mkdtemp
function appeared in
.Ox 2.2 .
The
.Fn mkstemps
function appeared in
.Ox 2.3 .