cap_capget(9)

💅 cap_capget — kernel API manual, but make it make sense

okay so bestie, welcome to cap_capget(9) from the Kernel API Manual ✨ this one is lowkey a little legend in ./security/commoncap.c and honestly it's giving "quiet little helper that just works". Let's get into it 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

int cap_capget (const struct task_struct *target , kernel_cap_t
*effective , kernel_cap_t *inheritable , kernel_cap_t *permitted );

like, that's the whole signature. no cap. returns an int, takes four args, four pointers, one of which is const because we're respectful like that 💅

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🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• target — the task you're snooping on 👀 the one whose capability sets you wanna retrieve. it's a const struct task_struct *, so no touching.
• effective — the place to record the effective set. this is where the answer goes, bestie.
• inheritable — the place to record the inheritable set. another output home 🏠
• permitted — the place to record the permitted set. last but literally not least.

all three of those output pointers are kernel_cap_t *, just so we're clear 🧚

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so what does it do? this function retrieves the capabilities of the nominated task and returns them to the caller. that's it. that's the whole vibe. iconic behaviour honestly 🔥

like — you name the task in target, and it hands the capability sets back to you through effective, inheritable and permitted. clean, simple, main character energy 👑

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

all of these live in the kernel file ./security/commoncap.c and they're the whole friend group, fr fr:

• cap_capable_helper(9)
• cap_capable(9)
• cap_settime(9)
• cap_ptrace_access_check(9)
• cap_ptrace_traceme(9)
• cap_capset(9)
• cap_inode_need_killpriv(9)
• cap_inode_killpriv(9)
• kuid_root_in_ns(9)
• rootid_from_xattr(9)
• cap_convert_nscap(9)
• get_vfs_caps_from_disk(9)
• cap_bprm_creds_from_file(9)
• cap_inode_setxattr(9)
• cap_inode_removexattr(9)
• cap_task_fix_setuid(9)
• cap_task_setscheduler(9)
• cap_task_setioprio(9)
• cap_task_setnice(9)
• cap_task_prctl(9)
• cap_vm_enough_memory(9)
• cap_mmap_addr(9)

go read them all, iykyk 📚💜

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ngl there are no warnings, no exit statuses, no env vars and no bug notes on this one — it's a chill little getter. don't go inventing drama where there is none 🙈

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okay that's the page!! this cutie lives in the ./security directory of the kernel tree, comes from the Kernel API Manual, and the version on record is dated October 2026 🌈 so go forth and retrieve those capability sets, bestie — slay 💅✨