[PATCH v4 08/12] ptrace: Document that wait_task_inactive can't fail

Eric W. Biederman
2022-05-05T18:26:41Z

After ptrace_freeze_traced succeeds it is known that the the tracee
has a __state value of __TASK_TRACED and that no __ptrace_unlink will
happen because the tracer is waiting for the tracee, and the tracee is
in ptrace_stop.

The function ptrace_freeze_traced can succeed at any point after
ptrace_stop has set TASK_TRACED and dropped siglock. The read_lock on
tasklist_lock only excludes ptrace_attach.

This means that the !current->ptrace which executes under a read_lock
of tasklist_lock will never see a ptrace_freeze_trace as the tracer
must have gone away before the tasklist_lock was taken and
ptrace_attach can not occur until the read_lock is dropped. As
ptrace_freeze_traced depends upon ptrace_attach running before it can
run that excludes ptrace_freeze_traced until __state is set to
TASK_RUNNING. This means that task_is_traced will fail in
ptrace_freeze_attach and ptrace_freeze_attached will fail.

On the current->ptrace branch of ptrace_stop which will be reached any
time after ptrace_freeze_traced has succeed it is known that __state
is __TASK_TRACED and schedule() will be called with that state.

Use a WARN_ON_ONCE to document that wait_task_inactive(TASK_TRACED)
should never fail. Remove the stale comment about may_ptrace_stop.

Strictly speaking this is not true because if PREEMPT_RT is enabled
wait_task_inactive can fail because __state can be changed. I don't
see this as a problem as the ptrace code is currently broken on
PREMPT_RT, and this is one of the issues. Failing and warning when
the assumptions of the code are broken is good.

Signed-off-by: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
---
kernel/ptrace.c | 14 +++-----------
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/ptrace.c b/kernel/ptrace.c
index 7105821595bc..05953ac9f7bd 100644
--- a/kernel/ptrace.c
+++ b/kernel/ptrace.c
@@ -266,17 +266,9 @@ static int ptrace_check_attach(struct task_struct *child, bool ignore_state)
}
read_unlock(&tasklist_lock);

- if (!ret && !ignore_state) {
- if (!wait_task_inactive(child, __TASK_TRACED)) {
- /*
- * This can only happen if may_ptrace_stop() fails and
- * ptrace_stop() changes ->state back to TASK_RUNNING,
- * so we should not worry about leaking __TASK_TRACED.
- */
- WARN_ON(READ_ONCE(child->__state) = __TASK_TRACED);
- ret = -ESRCH;
- }
- }
+ if (!ret && !ignore_state &&
+ WARN_ON_ONCE(!wait_task_inactive(child, __TASK_TRACED)))
+ ret = -ESRCH;

return ret;
}
--
2.35.3