Re: [PATCH] KVM: x86: switch hugepage recovery thread to vhost_task

Keith Busch
2024-12-19T23:31:43Z

On Thu, Dec 19, 2024 at 11:57:40PM +0100, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> It could be as simple as this on the kernel side: [adding Jens for
> a first look]

Cc'ing his @kernel email; first message:

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-kernel/20241108130737.126567-1-pbonzini@redhat.com/

> =============== 8< ===========
> From: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
> Subject: [PATCH] fs: proc: mark user and I/O workers as "kernel threads"
>
> A Rust library called "minijail" is looking at procfs to check if
> the current task has multiple threads, and to prevent fork() if it
> does. This is because fork() is in general ill-advised in
> multi-threaded programs, for example if another thread might have
> taken locks.
>
> However, this attempt falls afoul of kernel threads that are children
> of the user process that they serve. These are not a problem when
> forking, but they are still present in procfs. The library should
> discard them, but there is currently no way for userspace to detect
> PF_USER_WORKER or PF_IO_WORKER threads.
>
> The closest is the "Kthread" key in /proc/PID/task/TID/status. Extend
> it instead of introducing another keyl tasks that are marked with
> PF_USER_WORKER or PF_IO_WORKER are not kthreads, but they are close
> enough for basically all intents and purposes.

Yes, this looks good to me. But I also would have thought the original
patch was safe too :). Hopefully nothing depends on the current value
for these... there is often something making it difficult to have nice
things.

> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
>
> diff --git a/fs/proc/array.c b/fs/proc/array.c
> index 34a47fb0c57f..f702fb50c8ef 100644
> --- a/fs/proc/array.c
> +++ b/fs/proc/array.c
> @@ -221,7 +221,7 @@ static inline void task_state(struct seq_file *m, struct pid_namespace *ns,
> #endif
> seq_putc(m, '\n');
> - seq_printf(m, "Kthread:\t%c\n", p->flags & PF_KTHREAD ? '1' : '0');
> + seq_printf(m, "Kthread:\t%c\n", p->flags & (PF_KTHREAD | PF_USER_WORKER | PF_IO_WORKER) ? '1' : '0');
> }
> void render_sigset_t(struct seq_file *m, const char *header,UBLK_U_IO_REGISTER_ZC_RING