Re: [PATCH v4 2/4] pidfd: add PIDFD_SELF_* sentinels to refer to own thread/process

[Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com>]

On Thu, Oct 17, 2024 at 10:05:50PM +0100, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> It is useful to be able to utilise the pidfd mechanism to reference the
> current thread or process (from a userland point of view - thread group
> leader from the kernel's point of view).
>
> Therefore introduce PIDFD_SELF_THREAD to refer to the current thread, and
> PIDFD_SELF_THREAD_GROUP to refer to the current thread group leader.
>
> For convenience and to avoid confusion from userland's perspective we alias
> these:
>
> * PIDFD_SELF is an alias for PIDFD_SELF_THREAD - This is nearly always what
>   the user will want to use, as they would find it surprising if for
>   instance fd's were unshared()'d and they wanted to invoke pidfd_getfd()
>   and that failed.
>
> * PIDFD_SELF_PROCESS is an alias for PIDFD_SELF_THREAD_GROUP - Most users
>   have no concept of thread groups or what a thread group leader is, and
>   from userland's perspective and nomenclature this is what userland
>   considers to be a process.
>
> Due to the refactoring of the central __pidfd_get_pid() function we can
> implement this functionality centrally, providing the use of this sentinel
> in most functionality which utilises pidfd's.
>
> We need to explicitly adjust kernel_waitid_prepare() to permit this (though
> it wouldn't really make sense to use this there, we provide the ability for
> consistency).
>
> We explicitly disallow use of this in setns(), which would otherwise have
> required explicit custom handling, as it doesn't make sense to set the
> current calling thread to join the namespace of itself.
>
> As the callers of pidfd_get_pid() expect an increased reference count on
> the pid we do so in the self case, reducing churn and avoiding any breakage
> from existing logic which decrements this reference count.
>
> This change implicitly provides PIDFD_SELF_* support in the waitid(P_PIDFS,
> ...), process_madvise(), process_mrelease(), pidfd_send_signal(), and
> pidfd_getfd() system calls.
>
> Things such as polling a pidfs and general fd operations are not supported,
> this strictly provides the sentinel for APIs which explicitly accept a
> pidfd.
>

We need a:

Suggested-by: Pedro Falcato <pedro.falcato@gmail.com>

here, will add if respin, otherwise could you add Christian?

My apologies Pedro, this was wholly an oversight and my mistake!

> Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com>