GETCAP(8) System Manager's Manual GETCAP(8)

# [NAME](#NAME)

getcap - examine file capabilities

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**getcap** \[-v] \[-n] \[-r] \[-h] *filename* \[ ... ]

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

**getcap** displays the name and capabilities of each specified file.

# [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS)

[**-h**](#h)

prints quick usage.

[**-n**](#n)

prints any non-zero user namespace root user ID value found to be associated with a file's capabilities.

[**-r**](#r)

enables recursive search.

[**-v**](#v)

display all searched entries, even if the have no file-capabilities.

NOTE: an *empty* value of **'='** is **not** equivalent to an omitted (or removed) capability on a file. This is most significant with respect to the Ambient capability vector, since a process with Ambient capabilities will lose them when executing a file having **'='** capabilities, but will retain the Ambient inheritance of privilege when executing a file with an omitted file capability. This special *empty* setting can be used to prevent a binary from executing with privilege. For some time, the kernel honored this suppression for root executing the file, but the kernel developers decided after a number of years that this behavior was unexpected for the superuser and reverted it just for that user identity. Suppression of root privilege, for a process tree, is possible, using the [**capsh**(1)](/man/os/libcap/capsh.1) **--mode** option.

[*filename*](#filename)

One file per line.

# [REPORTING BUGS](#REPORTING_BUGS)

Please report bugs via:

[https://bugzilla.kernel.org/buglist.cgi?component=libcap&list\_id=1090757](https://bugzilla.kernel.org/buglist.cgi?component=libcap&list_id=1090757)

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

[**capsh**(1)](/man/os/libcap/capsh.1), [**cap\_get\_file**(3)](/man/os/libcap/cap_get_file.3), [**cap\_to\_text**(3)](/man/os/libcap/cap_to_text.3), [**capabilities**(7)](/man/os/libcap/capabilities.7), [**user\_namespaces**(7)](/man/os/libcap/user_namespaces.7), [**captree**(8)](/man/os/libcap/captree.8), [**getpcaps**(8)](/man/os/libcap/getpcaps.8) and [**setcap**(8)](/man/os/libcap/setcap.8).

2021-08-29

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Document: getcap(8) from libcap 2.78-r4 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/libs/libcap/libcap.git