PROCESS-KEYRING(7)                                                      Linux Programmer's Manual                                                     PROCESS-KEYRING(7)

NAME
       process-keyring - per-process shared keyring

DESCRIPTION
       The  process  keyring  is a keyring used to anchor keys on behalf of a process.  It is created only when a process requests it.  The process keyring has the name
       (description) _pid.

       A special serial number value, KEY_SPEC_PROCESS_KEYRING, is defined that can be used in lieu of the  actual  serial  number  of  the  calling  process's  process
       keyring.

       From  the keyctl(1) utility, '@p' can be used instead of a numeric key ID in much the same way, but since keyctl(1) is a program run after forking, this is of no
       utility.

       A thread created using the clone(2) CLONE_THREAD flag has the same process keyring as the caller of clone(2).  When a new process is created using fork() it ini‐
       tially  has  no  process  keyring.  A process's process keyring is cleared on execve(2).  The process keyring is destroyed when the last thread that refers to it
       terminates.

       If a process doesn't have a process keyring when it is accessed, then the process keyring will be created if the keyring is to be modified; otherwise, the  error
       ENOKEY results.

SEE ALSO
       keyctl(1), keyctl(3), keyrings(7), persistent-keyring(7), session-keyring(7), thread-keyring(7), user-keyring(7), user-session-keyring(7)

Linux                                                                          2020-08-13                                                             PROCESS-KEYRING(7)