Temporary Files
In this chapter, we describe how to create temporary files and directories, how to remove them, and how to work with programs which do not create files in ways that are safe with a shared directory for temporary files. General file system manipulation is treated in a separate chapter, File System Manipulation.
Secure creation of temporary files has four different aspects.
-
The location of the directory for temporary files must be obtained in a secure manner (that is, untrusted environment variables must be ignored, see xref:tasks/Tasks-Processes.adoc#sect-Defensive_Coding-Tasks-secure_getenv[Accessing Environment Variables).
-
A new file must be created. Reusing an existing file must be avoided (the
/tmp
race condition). This is tricky because traditionally, system-wide temporary directories shared by all users are used. -
The file must be created in a way that makes it impossible for other users to open it.
-
The descriptor for the temporary file should not leak to subprocesses.
All functions mentioned below will take care of these aspects.
Traditionally, temporary files are often used to reduce memory
usage of programs. More and more systems use RAM-based file
systems such as tmpfs
for storing temporary
files, to increase performance and decrease wear on Flash storage.
As a result, spooling data to temporary files does not result in
any memory savings, and the related complexity can be avoided if
the data is kept in process memory.
Obtaining the Location of Temporary Directory
Some functions below need the location of a directory which stores temporary files. For C/C++ programs, use the following steps to obtain that directory:
-
Use
secure_getenv
to obtain the value of theTMPDIR
environment variable. If it is set, convert the path to a fully-resolved absolute path, usingrealpath(path, NULL)
. Check if the new path refers to a directory and is writeable. In this case, use it as the temporary directory. -
Fall back to
/tmp
.
In Python, you can use the tempfile.tempdir
variable.
Java does not support SUID/SGID programs, so you can use the
java.lang.System.getenv(String)
method to
obtain the value of the TMPDIR
environment
variable, and follow the two steps described above. (Java’s
default directory selection does not honor
TMPDIR
.)
Named Temporary Files
The mkostemp
function creates a named
temporary file. You should specify the
O_CLOEXEC
flag to avoid file descriptor leaks
to subprocesses. (Applications which do not use multiple threads
can also use mkstemp
, but libraries should
use mkostemp
.) For determining the
directory part of the file name pattern, see Obtaining the Location of Temporary Directory
The file is not removed automatically. It is not safe to rename
or delete the file before processing, or transform the name in
any way (for example, by adding a file extension). If you need
multiple temporary files, call mkostemp
multiple times. Do not create additional file names derived
from the name provided by a previous
mkostemp
call. However, it is safe to close
the descriptor returned by mkostemp
and
reopen the file using the generated name.
The Python class tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile
provides similar functionality, except that the file is deleted
automatically by default. Note that you may have to use the
file
attribute to obtain the actual file
object because some programming interfaces cannot deal with
file-like objects. The C function mkostemp
is also available as tempfile.mkstemp
.
In Java, you can use the
java.io.File.createTempFile(String, String,
File)
function, using the temporary file location
determined according to Obtaining the Location of Temporary Directory.
Do not use java.io.File.deleteOnExit()
to
delete temporary files, and do not register a shutdown hook for
each temporary file you create. In both cases, the deletion
hint cannot be removed from the system if you delete the
temporary file prior to termination of the VM, causing a memory
leak.
Temporary Files without Names
The tmpfile
function creates a temporary
file and immediately deletes it, while keeping the file open.
As a result, the file lacks a name and its space is deallocated
as soon as the file descriptor is closed (including the implicit
close when the process terminates). This avoids cluttering the
temporary directory with orphaned files.
Alternatively, if the maximum size of the temporary file is
known beforehand, the fmemopen
function can
be used to create a FILE *
object which is
backed by memory.
In Python, unnamed temporary files are provided by the
tempfile.TemporaryFile
class, and the
tempfile.SpooledTemporaryFile
class provides
a way to avoid creation of small temporary files.
Java does not support unnamed temporary files.
Temporary Directories
The mkdtemp
function can be used to create
a temporary directory. (For determining the directory part of
the file name pattern, see Obtaining the Location of Temporary Directory.)
The directory is not automatically removed. In Python, this
function is available as tempfile.mkdtemp
.
In Java 7, temporary directories can be created using the
java.nio.file.Files.createTempDirectory(Path, String,
FileAttribute…)
function.
When creating files in the temporary directory, use automatically generated names, e.g., derived from a sequential counter. Files with externally provided names could be picked up in unexpected contexts, and crafted names could actually point outside of the tempoary directory (due to directory traversal).
Removing a directory tree in a completely safe manner is
complicated. Unless there are overriding performance concerns,
the rm program should be used, with
the -rf
and --
options.
Compensating for Unsafe File Creation
There are two ways to make a function or program which excepts a file name safe for use with temporary files. See Creating Safe Processes for details on subprocess creation.
-
Create a temporary directory and place the file there. If possible, run the program in a subprocess which uses the temporary directory as its current directory, with a restricted environment. Use generated names for all files in that temporary directory. (See Temporary Directories.)
-
Create the temporary file and pass the generated file name to the function or program. This only works if the function or program can cope with a zero-length existing file. It is safe only under additional assumptions:
-
The function or program must not create additional files whose name is derived from the specified file name or are otherwise predictable.
-
The function or program must not delete the file before processing it.
-
It must not access any existing files in the same directory.
It is often difficult to check whether these additional assumptions are matched, therefore this approach is not recommended.
-
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