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libcap

brew install libcap v2.78 BSD-3-Clause AND GPL-2.0-or-later

Shared library implementing POSIX 1003.1e capabilities for fine-grained privilege control on Linux.

Why you might care

libcap lets you grant specific privileged operations to processes without giving them full root access — essential for security-hardened containers, daemons, and system tools. It's a primary build dependency for privilege-dropping utilities and capability-aware software; most users need it transitively rather than directly.

Categories

Alternatives

Linux kernel capabilities (native) AppArmor SELinux
94.7k
30-day installs · #44
148.0k
90-day · #142
273.6k
365-day · #233

Links

Blurb generated by claude-haiku-4-5 on today.

Raw metadata
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  "deprecated": 0,
  "deprecation_reason": null,
  "desc": "User-space interfaces to POSIX 1003.1e capabilities",
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  "homepage": "https://sites.google.com/site/fullycapable/",
  "homepage_og_description": "This site is devoted to announcing new versions of libcap (both C and Go implementations), and sharing information about using Linux Capabilities -- an alternative to the superuser model of privilege under Linux.\nResources:\nRelease notes for libcap, libpsx and Go packages cap and psx.\nYou can read",
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  "license": "BSD-3-Clause AND GPL-2.0-or-later",
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  "why_use_this": "libcap lets you grant specific privileged operations to processes without giving them full root access \u2014 essential for security-hardened containers, daemons, and system tools. It\u0027s a primary build dependency for privilege-dropping utilities and capability-aware software; most users need it transitively rather than directly."
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