| EXECVE(2) | System Calls Manual | EXECVE(2) | 
execve —
#include <unistd.h>
int
  
  execve(const
    char *path, char *const
    argv[], char *const
    envp[]);
execve() transforms the calling process into a new
  process. The new process is constructed from an ordinary file, whose name is
  pointed to by path, called the new process
  file. This file is either an executable object file, or a file of data for
  an interpreter. An executable object file consists of an identifying header,
  followed by pages of data representing the initial program (text) and
  initialized data pages. Additional pages may be specified by the header to be
  initialized with zero data; see
  a.out(5).
An interpreter file begins with a line of the form:
When an interpreter file is execve()d the
    system runs the specified interpreter. If the optional
    arg is specified, it becomes the first argument to the
    interpreter, and the name of the originally
    execve()d file becomes the second argument;
    otherwise, the name of the originally execve()d file
    becomes the first argument. The original arguments are shifted over to
    become the subsequent arguments. The zeroth argument, normally the name of
    the execve()d file, is left unchanged. The
    interpreter named by interpreter must not itself be an
    interpreter file. (See
    script(7) for a detailed
    discussion of interpreter file execution.)
The argument argv is a pointer to a null-terminated array of character pointers to null-terminated character strings. These strings construct the argument list to be made available to the new process. By custom, the first element should be the name of the executed program (for example, the last component of path).
The argument envp is also a pointer to a null-terminated array of character pointers to null-terminated strings. A pointer to this array is normally stored in the global variable environ. These strings pass information to the new process that is not directly an argument to the command (see environ(7)).
File descriptors open in the calling process image remain open in
    the new process image, except for those for which the close-on-exec flag is
    set (see close(2) and
    fcntl(2)). Descriptors that
    remain open are unaffected by execve().
In the case of a new setuid or setgid executable being executed, if file descriptors 0, 1, or 2 (representing stdin, stdout, and stderr) are currently unallocated, these descriptors will be opened to point to some system file like /dev/null. The intent is to ensure these descriptors are not unallocated, since many libraries make assumptions about the use of these 3 file descriptors.
Signals set to be ignored in the calling process are set to be ignored in the new process. Signals which are set to be caught in the calling process image are set to default action in the new process image. Blocked signals remain blocked regardless of changes to the signal action. The signal stack is reset to be undefined (see sigaction(2) for more information).
If the set-user-ID mode bit of the new process image file is set (see chmod(2)), the effective user ID of the new process image is set to the owner ID of the new process image file. If the set-group-ID mode bit of the new process image file is set, the effective group ID of the new process image is set to the group ID of the new process image file. (The effective group ID is the first element of the group list.) The real user ID, real group ID and other group IDs of the new process image remain the same as the calling process image. After any set-user-ID and set-group-ID processing, the effective user ID is recorded as the saved set-user-ID, and the effective group ID is recorded as the saved set-group-ID. These values may be used in changing the effective IDs later (see setuid(2)).
The new process also inherits the following attributes from the calling process:
| process ID | see getpid(2) | 
| parent process ID | see getppid(2) | 
| process group ID | see getpgrp(2) | 
| access groups | see getgroups(2) | 
| working directory | see chdir(2) | 
| root directory | see chroot(2) | 
| control terminal | see termios(4) | 
| resource usages | see getrusage(2) | 
| interval timers | see getitimer(2) | 
| resource limits | see getrlimit(2) | 
| file mode mask | see umask(2) | 
| signal mask | see sigaction(2), sigprocmask(2) | 
When a program is executed as a result of an
    execve() call, it is entered as follows:
main(argc, argv, envp) int argc; char **argv, **envp;
where argc is the number of elements in argv (the “arg count”) and argv points to the array of character pointers to the arguments themselves.
execve() function overlays the current process
  image with a new process image the successful call has no process to return
  to. If execve() does return to the calling process an
  error has occurred; the return value will be -1 and the global variable
  errno is set to indicate the error.
execve() will fail and return to the calling process if:
E2BIG]NCARGS in
      ⟨sys/param.h⟩).EACCES]MNT_NOEXEC in
      ⟨sys/mount.h⟩).EAGAIN]EFAULT]EIO]ELOOP]ENAMETOOLONG]NAME_MAX}
      characters, or an entire path name exceeded
      {PATH_MAX} characters.ENOENT]#! and the script interpreter does
      not exist.ENOEXEC]ENOMEM]ENOTDIR]ETXTBSY]execve() function conforms to IEEE
  Std 1003.1-1990 (“POSIX.1”).
execve() function call first appeared in
  Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
| February 24, 2008 | NetBSD 9.4 |