Re: [RFC PATCH v2 0/8] Count rlimits in each user namespace

Eric W. Biederman
2021-01-11T20:18:31Z

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:

> On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 9:34 AM Alexey Gladkov <gladkov.alexey@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> To address the problem, we bind rlimit counters to each user namespace. The
>> result is a tree of rlimit counters with the biggest value at the root (aka
>> init_user_ns). The rlimit counter increment/decrement occurs in the current and
>> all parent user namespaces.
>
> I'm not seeing why this is necessary.
>
> Maybe it's the right approach, but none of the patches (or this cover
> letter email) really explain it to me.
>
> I understand why you might want the _limits_ themselves would form a
> tree like this - with the "master limit" limiting the limits in the
> user namespaces under it.
>
> But I don't understand why the _counts_ should do that. The 'struct
> user_struct' should be shared across even user namespaces for the same
> user.
>
> IOW, the very example of the problem you quote seems to argue against this:
>
>> For example, there are two containers (A and B) created by one user. The
>> container A sets RLIMIT_NPROC=1 and starts one process. Everything is fine, but
>> when container B tries to do the same it will fail because the number of
>> processes is counted globally for each user and user has one process already.
>
> Note how the problem was _not_ that the _count_ was global. That part
> was fine and all good.

The problem is fundamentally that the per process RLIMIT_NPROC was
compared against the user_struct->processes.

I have only heard the problem described but I believe it is either the
RLIMIT_NPROC test in fork or at the beginning of do_execveat_common that
is failing.

From fs/exec.c line 1866:
> /*
> * We move the actual failure in case of RLIMIT_NPROC excess from
> * set*uid() to execve() because too many poorly written programs
> * don't check setuid() return code. Here we additionally recheck
> * whether NPROC limit is still exceeded.
> */
> if ((current->flags & PF_NPROC_EXCEEDED) &&
> atomic_read(&current_user()->processes) > rlimit(RLIMIT_NPROC)) {
> retval = -EAGAIN;
> goto out_ret;
> }

From fs/fork.c line 1966:
> retval = -EAGAIN;
> if (atomic_read(&p->real_cred->user->processes) >=
> task_rlimit(p, RLIMIT_NPROC)) {
> if (p->real_cred->user != INIT_USER &&
> !capable(CAP_SYS_RESOURCE) && !capable(CAP_SYS_ADMIN))
> goto bad_fork_free;
> }
> current->flags &= ~PF_NPROC_EXCEEDED;

In both the cases the RLIMIT_NPROC value comes from
task->signal->rlim[RLIMIT_NPROC] and the count of processes
comes from task->cred->user->processes.

> No, the problem was that the _limit_ in container A also ended up
> affecting container B.

The description I have is that both containers run the same service
that set it's RLIMIT_NPROC to 1 in both containers.

> So to me, that says that it would make sense to continue to use the
> resource counts in 'struct user_struct' (because if user A has a hard
> limit of X, then creating a new namespace shouldn't expand that
> limit), but then have the ability to make per-container changes to the
> resource limits (as long as they are within the bounds of the parent
> user namespace resource limit).

I agree that needs to work as well.

> Maybe there is some reason for this ucounts approach, but if so, I
> feel it was not explained at all.

Let me see if I can starte the example a litle more clearly.

Suppose there is a service never_fork that sets RLIMIT_NPROC runs as
never_fork_user and sets RLIMIT_NPROC to 1 in it's systemd service file.

Further suppose there is a user bob who has two containers he wants to
run: container1 and container2. Both containers start the never_fork
service.

Bob first starts container1 and inside it the never_fork service starts.
Bob starts container2 and the never_fork service fails to start.

Does that make it clear that it is the count of the processes that would
exceed 1 if both instances of the never_fork service starts that would
be the problem?

Eric