linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org archive mirror
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
* [PATCH v6 0/3] Add support for long task name
@ 2025-07-24 12:36 Bhupesh
  2025-07-24 12:36 ` [PATCH v6 1/3] exec: Remove obsolete comments Bhupesh
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Bhupesh @ 2025-07-24 12:36 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: akpm
  Cc: bhupesh, kernel-dev, linux-kernel, bpf, linux-perf-users,
	linux-fsdevel, linux-mm, oliver.sang, lkp, laoar.shao, pmladek,
	rostedt, mathieu.desnoyers, arnaldo.melo, alexei.starovoitov,
	andrii.nakryiko, mirq-linux, peterz, willy, david, viro, keescook,
	ebiederm, brauner, jack, mingo, juri.lelli, bsegall, mgorman,
	vschneid, linux-trace-kernel, kees, torvalds

Changes since v5:
================
- v5 can be seen here: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250716123916.511889-1-bhupesh@igalia.com/ 
- As suggested by Linus, replaced 'tsk->comm' with 'tsk->comm_str' locally, and verified basic
  thread names and then changed 'tsk->comm_str' back to 'tsk->comm'. So essentially now 'tsk->comm'
  is TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN i.e. 64-bytes long.

Changes since v4:
================
- v4 can be seen here: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250521062337.53262-1-bhupesh@igalia.com/ 
- As suggested by Kees, replaced tsk->comm with tsk->comm_str, inside 'task_struct'
  where TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN is 64-bytes.

Changes since v3:
================
- v3 can be seen here: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250507110444.963779-1-bhupesh@igalia.com/
- As suggested by Petr and Steven, used 'comm_ext' name instead of
  'real_comm'. Correspondingly the macro name is changed to 'TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN'
  for the 64-byte extended comm.
- Rebased this patchset on linux-next/master, which contain the following patch from
  Steven now:
       155fd6c3e2f0 ("tracing/sched: Use __string() instead of fixed lengths for task->comm")
- Accordingly, v4 drops the changes done for 'trace/sched' events in v3,
  but retains the 'safe' memcpy' changes for other kernel trace users.

Changes since v2:
================
- v2 can be seen here: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250331121820.455916-1-bhupesh@igalia.com/
- As suggested by Yafang and Kees, picked Linus' suggested approach for
  this version (see: <https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=wjAmmHUg6vho1KjzQi2=psR30+CogFd4aXrThr2gsiS4g@mail.gmail.com/>).
- Dropped kthreads patch from this version. It would be sent out
  separately, if we have a consensus on this approach.

Changes since v1:
================
- v1 can be seen here: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250314052715.610377-1-bhupesh@igalia.com/
- As suggested by Kees, added [PATCH 3/3] to have a consistent
  'full_name' entry inside 'task_struct' which both tasks and
  kthreads can use.
- Fixed the commit message to indicate that the existing ABI
  '/proc/$pid/task/$tid/comm' remains untouched and a parallel
  '/proc/$pid/task/$tid/full_name' ABI for new (interested) users.

While working with user-space debugging tools which work especially
on linux gaming platforms, I found that the task name is truncated due
to the limitation of TASK_COMM_LEN.

Now, during debug tracing, seeing truncated names is not very useful,
especially on gaming platforms where the number of tasks running can
be very high.

This patchset does not touch 'TASK_COMM_LEN' at all, i.e.
'TASK_COMM_LEN' and the 16-byte design remains untouched.

Via this patchset, Linus suggested 'tsk->comm' is made 64-byte long
and equal to TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN.

To avoid any surprises / bug,s I replaced 'tsk->comm' with
'tsk->comm_str' locally inside 'task_struct' and checked compilation
of code and basic working of thread names:

       struct task_struct {
	       ..............
               char    comm_str[TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN];
	       ..............
       };

       where TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN is 64-bytes.

Once done, I changed the name back to 'tsk->comm'.

To ensure that the existing ABI and userspace continues to work
as intended, we ensure that:

- Existing users of 'get_task_comm'/ 'set_task_comm' will get 'tsk->comm'
  truncated to a maximum of 'TASK_COMM_LEN' (16-bytes) to maintain ABI,
- New / Modified users of 'get_task_comm'/ 'set_task_comm' will get
 'tsk->comm' supported up to a maximum of 'TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN' (64-bytes).

Note, that the existing users have not been modified to migrate to
'TASK_COMM_EXT_LEN', in case they have hard-coded expectations of
dealing with only a 'TASK_COMM_LEN' long 'tsk->comm_str'.

After this change, gdb is able to show full name of the task, using a
simple app which generates threads with long names [see 1]:
  # gdb ./threadnames -ex "run info thread" -ex "detach" -ex "quit" > log
  # cat log

  NameThatIsTooLongForComm[4662]

[1]. https://github.com/lostgoat/tasknames

Bhupesh (3):
  exec: Remove obsolete comments
  treewide: Switch memcpy() users of 'task->comm' to a more safer
    implementation
  include: Set tsk->comm length to 64 bytes

 include/linux/coredump.h       |  3 ++-
 include/linux/sched.h          | 15 +++++++++------
 include/trace/events/block.h   |  5 +++++
 include/trace/events/oom.h     |  1 +
 include/trace/events/osnoise.h |  1 +
 include/trace/events/signal.h  |  1 +
 include/trace/events/task.h    |  2 ++
 7 files changed, 21 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

-- 
2.38.1


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2025-08-05 11:14 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 12+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2025-07-24 12:36 [PATCH v6 0/3] Add support for long task name Bhupesh
2025-07-24 12:36 ` [PATCH v6 1/3] exec: Remove obsolete comments Bhupesh
2025-07-24 23:50   ` Kees Cook
2025-07-24 12:36 ` [PATCH v6 2/3] treewide: Switch memcpy() users of 'task->comm' to a more safer implementation Bhupesh
2025-07-24 23:49   ` Kees Cook
2025-07-26 17:50     ` Linus Torvalds
2025-07-26 23:19       ` Kees Cook
2025-07-26 23:37         ` Linus Torvalds
2025-08-05 11:13           ` Bhupesh Sharma
2025-07-24 12:36 ` [PATCH v6 3/3] include: Set tsk->comm length to 64 bytes Bhupesh
2025-07-24 23:38   ` Kees Cook
2025-07-26 11:20   ` kernel test robot

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).