Ptrace

PR_SET_DUMPABLE Changes Linux Process Inspection Boundaries

A service receives credentials into process memory, drops privileges, and continues running under an ordinary account. Another same-account process may still be able to inspect it through interfaces intended for debugging. Linux places an additional process attribute, commonly called dumpable, into several of these access decisions. prctl(PR_SET_DUMPABLE, 0) marks the calling process non-dumpable. The effect is broader than suppressing a core file: Linux also incorporates dumpable state into ptrace access checks and changes ownership behavior for files under /proc/<pid>. These effects form related boundaries, but they are not a single universal ban on process observation.