Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] madvise MADV_DOEXEC

Matthew Wilcox
2020-07-30T15:34:53Z

On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 05:27:05PM +0200, Christian Brauner wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 04:22:50PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 10:11:22AM -0700, Anthony Yznaga wrote:
> > > This patchset adds support for preserving an anonymous memory range across
> > > exec(3) using a new madvise MADV_DOEXEC argument. The primary benefit for
> > > sharing memory in this manner, as opposed to re-attaching to a named shared
> > > memory segment, is to ensure it is mapped at the same virtual address in
> > > the new process as it was in the old one. An intended use for this is to
> > > preserve guest memory for guests using vfio while qemu exec's an updated
> > > version of itself. By ensuring the memory is preserved at a fixed address,
> > > vfio mappings and their associated kernel data structures can remain valid.
> > > In addition, for the qemu use case, qemu instances that back guest RAM with
> > > anonymous memory can be updated.
> >
> > I just realised that something else I'm working on might be a suitable
> > alternative to this. Apologies for not realising it sooner.
> >
> > http://www.wil.cx/~willy/linux/sileby.html
>
> Just skimming: make it O_CLOEXEC by default. ;)

I appreciate the suggestion, and it makes sense for many 'return an fd'
interfaces, but the point of mshare() is to, well, share. So sharing
the fd with a child is a common usecase, unlike say sharing a timerfd.
The only other reason to use mshare() is to pass the fd over a unix
socket to a non-child, and I submit that is far less common than wanting
to share with a child.