The saved user ID (suid) is used when a program running with elevated privileges needs to temporarily do some unprivileged work: it changes its effective user ID from a privileged value (typically root) to some unprivileged one, and this triggers a copy of the privileged user ID to the saved user ID slot. Later, it can set its effective user ID back to the saved user ID (an unprivileged process can only set its effective user ID to three values: its real user ID, its saved user ID, and its effective user ID—i.e., unchanged) to resume its privileges.
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