[PATCH 1/4] exec: Fix a deadlock in ptrace

Bernd Edlinger
2020-03-10T13:43:53Z

This fixes a deadlock in the tracer when tracing a multi-threaded
application that calls execve while more than one thread are running.

I observed that when running strace on the gcc test suite, it always
blocks after a while, when expect calls execve, because other threads
have to be terminated. They send ptrace events, but the strace is no
longer able to respond, since it is blocked in vm_access.

The deadlock is always happening when strace needs to access the
tracees process mmap, while another thread in the tracee starts to
execve a child process, but that cannot continue until the
PTRACE_EVENT_EXIT is handled and the WIFEXITED event is received:

strace D 0 30614 30584 0x00000000
Call Trace:
__schedule+0x3ce/0x6e0
schedule+0x5c/0xd0
schedule_preempt_disabled+0x15/0x20
__mutex_lock.isra.13+0x1ec/0x520
__mutex_lock_killable_slowpath+0x13/0x20
mutex_lock_killable+0x28/0x30
mm_access+0x27/0xa0
process_vm_rw_core.isra.3+0xff/0x550
process_vm_rw+0xdd/0xf0
__x64_sys_process_vm_readv+0x31/0x40
do_syscall_64+0x64/0x220
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9

expect D 0 31933 30876 0x80004003
Call Trace:
__schedule+0x3ce/0x6e0
schedule+0x5c/0xd0
flush_old_exec+0xc4/0x770
load_elf_binary+0x35a/0x16c0
search_binary_handler+0x97/0x1d0
__do_execve_file.isra.40+0x5d4/0x8a0
__x64_sys_execve+0x49/0x60
do_syscall_64+0x64/0x220
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9

This changes mm_access to use the new exec_update_mutex
instead of cred_guard_mutex.

This patch is based on the following patch by Eric W. Biederman:
"[PATCH 0/5] Infrastructure to allow fixing exec deadlocks"
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/87v9ne5y4y.fsf_-_@x220.int.ebiederm.org/

Signed-off-by: Bernd Edlinger <bernd.edlinger@hotmail.de>
---
kernel/fork.c | 4 ++--
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/fork.c b/kernel/fork.c
index c12595a..5720ff3 100644
--- a/kernel/fork.c
+++ b/kernel/fork.c
@@ -1224,7 +1224,7 @@ struct mm_struct *mm_access(struct task_struct *task, unsigned int mode)
struct mm_struct *mm;
int err;

- err = mutex_lock_killable(&task->signal->cred_guard_mutex);
+ err = mutex_lock_killable(&task->signal->exec_update_mutex);
if (err)
return ERR_PTR(err);

@@ -1234,7 +1234,7 @@ struct mm_struct *mm_access(struct task_struct *task, unsigned int mode)
mmput(mm);
mm = ERR_PTR(-EACCES);
}
- mutex_unlock(&task->signal->cred_guard_mutex);
+ mutex_unlock(&task->signal->exec_update_mutex);

return mm;
}
--
1.9.1