[Solved]What are security attributes?

[JoshuaS]

Hi everyone!

I'm learning how to program in Windows. I'm reading about threads here:
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Cplusplus/Multithreading-in-C

But in a lot of functions dealing with these ( like CreateMutex() ) a parameter called "LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttr" is needed. This is the security attribute according to my sourece. I have been searching with Google for hours now, but I can't find an explanation of what they are.

So does anyone know of a good document explaining these? I would also appreciate it if you explained it yourself, but I don't want to look like someone who isn't prepared to research things on their own ;).

Thanks in advance for your answer! :)

[kbw]

Most objects in the Windows API are securable.

Unix used to have three sets of flags to specify access: owner/group/everyone. The rights were read/write/execute.

The world has moved on since then and many systems use access control lists.

In Windows, access control lists are an ordered collection of access control entries. Each access control entry specifies a grant/deny flag, the right and user/group id.

If you don't care about permissions on your object, just specify NULL. I believe in a few instances, server side of a named pipe for example, you need to create an empty ACL instead.

[JoshuaS]

Thanks, that was what I needed to know! :)