To: Sukadev Bhattiprolu <sukadev@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Matt Helsley <matthltc@us.ibm.com>, Oren Laadan <orenl@librato.com>,
       Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@free.fr>, randy.dunlap@oracle.com,
       arnd@arndb.de, linux-api@vger.kernel.org,
       Containers <containers@lists.linux-foundation.org>,
       Nathan Lynch <nathanl@austin.ibm.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
       Louis.Rilling@kerlabs.com, kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com,
       hpa@zytor.com, mingo@elte.hu, torvalds@linux-foundation.org,
       Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@gmail.com>, roland@redhat.com,
       Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@openvz.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC][v8][PATCH 0/10] Implement clone3() system call
References: <20091020005125.GG27627@count0.beaverton.ibm.com>
	<m1vdiad9jd.fsf@fess.ebiederm.org> <20091020040315.GA26632@us.ibm.com>
	<m1iqeauyvl.fsf@fess.ebiederm.org> <20091020183329.GB22646@us.ibm.com>
	<m1r5sxsw7w.fsf@fess.ebiederm.org> <20091021062021.GA2667@us.ibm.com>
	<m1eioxrtsb.fsf@fess.ebiederm.org> <20091023004253.GA7915@us.ibm.com>
	<m1bpjyrkep.fsf@fess.ebiederm.org> <20091023053001.GA24972@us.ibm.com>
From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:44:19 -0700
In-Reply-To: <20091023053001.GA24972@us.ibm.com> (Sukadev Bhattiprolu's message of "Thu\, 22 Oct 2009 22\:30\:01 -0700")
Message-ID: <m1ws2mpsuk.fsf@fess.ebiederm.org>
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Sukadev Bhattiprolu <sukadev@linux.vnet.ibm.com> writes:

> Eric W. Biederman [ebiederm@xmission.com] wrote:
> | > | +	if (target < RESERVED_PIDS)
> | >
> | > Should we replace RESERVED_PIDS with 0 ? We currently allow new
> | > containers to have pids 1..32K in the first pass and in subsequent
> | > passes assign starting at RESERVED_PIDS.
> | 
> | If it is a preexisting namespace pid namespace removing the RESERVED_PIDS
> | check removes most if not all of the point of RESERVED_PIDS.
> | 
> | In a new fresh pid namespace I have no problem with not performing
> | the RESERVED_PIDS check.
>
> In that case can we do this
>
> 	if (target_pid < RESERVED_PIDS && !pid_ns->level)
> 		return -EINVAL;
>
> instead ?
> | 
> | So I guess that makes the check.
> | 
> | if ((target < RESERVED_PIDS) && pid_ns->last_pid >= RESERVED_PIDS)
> |    return -EINVAL;
>
> I am just wondering if there is a small corner case where C/R would randomly
> fail because of this sequence:
>
> 	- C/R code calls clone() or clone3() say about RESERVED_PIDS-1
> 	  times and ->last_pid == RESERVED_PIDS-1.
>
> 	- C/R code calls normal fork()/alloc_pidmap() for a short-lived
> 	  child - its pid == ->last_pid == RESERVED_PIDS
>
> 	- C/R code then calls clone3()/set_pidmap() to set the pid of
> 	  a new child to RESERVED_PID but fails (i.e it fails to restore
> 	  a pid even when the pid is not in use).
>
> We could argue that mixing alloc_pidmap() and set_pidmap() during restart
> is bad since set_pidmap() may fail.
>
> The C/R developer could argue that we are forcing them to specify a pid
> even for a short lived process that they wait()s on and thus ensure that
> pid is not in use.
>
> Anyway, is RESERVED_PIDS meant for initial kernel-threads/daemons - if so
> would it be ok enforce it only in init_pid_ns ?

It is mean for initial user space daemons, things that start on boot.

I don't know how much the protection matters at this date, but we have it.

Eric
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