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0 pointsskissane6y ago0 comments

> macOS and probably iOS has an undocumented set of filesystem calls which require a "cookie." You call open() and provide a large integer of your choice (probably random); to close the file you need to provide the same integer.

I want to learn more. Is there anything I can read about this? (I tried searching but I just keep on getting stuff about HTTP cookies not this.)

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4 comments · 3 top-level

wereHamster6y ago· 1 in thread

Perhaps this? https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Sy...

nneonneo6y ago

No, those are libc functions that let you use stdio (fprintf, fwrite, fscanf, etc.) with arbitrary "file" implementations. glibc has these too, but these have nothing to do with the underlying syscalls.

saurik6y ago

guarded_open_np guarded_close_np change_fdguard_np

https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-4903.241.1/bsd/k...

exikyut6y ago

I too am very interested in this, so tried searches with "macos", then "mach" and "xnu".

This led me to tentatively conclude that it's not in XNU.

On the one hand, http://newosxbook.com/src.jl?tree=xnu-1504.15.3&file=/bsd/sy... seems interesting.

On the other hand, https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu/blob/0a798f6738bc1db0128... is suggested to be a red herring because of https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu/blob/0a798f6738bc1db0128.... I have no idea if these are connected but they might be.

I'm not sure if my GitHub and/or Google queries aren't finding the relevant bits of magic though; had (only) a couple minutes and got curious.

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