Normally, on a Unix-like operating system, the ownership of files and directories is based on the default uid (user-id) and gid (group-id) of the user who created them. The same thing happens when a process is launched: it runs with the effective user-id and group-id of the user who started it, and with the corresponding privileges. This behaviour can be modified by using special permissions.
The setuid bit
When the setuid bit is used, the behaviour described above it's modified so that when an executable is launched, it does not run with the privileges of the user who launched it, but with that of the file owner instead. So, for example, if an executable has the setuid bit set on it, and it's owned by root, when launched by a normal user, it will run with root privileges. It should be clear why this represents a potential security risk, if not used correctly.
An example of an executable with the setuid permission set is passwd, the utility we can use to change our login password. We can verify that by using the ls command:
ls -l /bin/passwd -rwsr-xr-x. 1 root root 27768 Feb 11 2017 /bin/passwd
As you surely have noticed looking at the output of the command above, the setuid bit is represented by an s in place of the x of the executable bit. The s implies that the executable bit is set, otherwise, you would see a capital S. This happens when the setuid or setgid bits are set, but the executable bit is not, showing the user an inconsistency: the setuid and setgit bits have no effect if the executable bit is not set. The setuid bit has no effect on directories.
The setgid bit
Unlike the setuid bit, the setgid bit has an effect on both files and directories. In the first case, the file which has the setgid bit set, when executed, instead of running with the privileges of the group of the user who started it, runs with those of the group which owns the file: in other words, the group ID of the process will be the same of that of the file.
When used on a directory, instead, the setgid bit alters the standard behaviour so that the group of the files created inside said directory, will not be that of the user who created them, but that of the parent directory itself. This is often used to ease the sharing of files (files will be modifiable by all the users that are part of said group). Just like the setuid, the setgid bit can easily be spotted (in this case on a test directory):
ls -ld test drwxrwsr-x. 2 egdoc egdoc 4096 Nov 1 17:25 test
This time the s is present in place of the executable bit on the group sector.
The sticky bit
The sticky bit works in a different way: while it has no effect on files when used on a directory, all the files in the said directory will be modifiable only by their owners. A typical case in which it is used involves the /tmp directory. Typically this directory is writable by all users on the system, so to make impossible for one user to delete the files of another one, the sticky bit is set:
$ ls -ld /tmp
In this case, the owner, the group, and all other users have full permissions on the directory (read, write and execute). The sticky bit is identifiable by at which is reported where normally the executable x bit is shown, in the "other" section. Again, a lowercase t implies that the executable bit is also present, otherwise, you would see a capital T.
How to set special bits
Just like normal permissions, the special bits can be assigned with the chmod command, using the numeric or the ugo/rwx format. In the former case the setuid, setgid, and sticky bits are represented respectively by a value of 4, 2 and 1. So for example if we want to set the setgid bit on a directory we would execute:
$ chmod 2775 test
With this command we set the setgid bit on the directory, (identified by the first of the four numbers), and gave full privileges on it to its owner and to the user that are members of the group the directory belongs to, plus read and execute permission for all the other users (remember the execute bit on a directory means that a user is able to cd into it or use ls to list its content).
The other way we can set the special permissions bits is to use the ugo/rwx syntax:
$ chmod g+s test
To apply the setuid bit to a file, we would have run:
$ chmod u+s file
While to apply the sticky bit:
$ chmod o+t test
The use of special permissions can be very useful in some situations, but if not used correctly they can introduce serious vulnerabilities, so think twice before using them.
