Re: futex question

[Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>]

(Cc:-ed more futex folks.)

* Anirban Sinha <ASinha@zeugmasystems.com> wrote:

> Hi Folks:
> 
> We are observing something interesting regarding how task->robust_list
> pointer is being handled across a sys_execve() call. If a task does a
> sys_set_robust_list() with a certain head pointer and then at some point
> does a execve() call to over-write it's address space, the 'robust-list'
> pointer is never cleared. So in essence what happens is that during task
> exit, within mm_release(), the 
> if (unlikely(tsk->robust_list)) condition might still be true because
> the pointer has a non-null address. However, the actual address value
> may not belong to the new address space or point to something else
> within the new address space. Should we not just clear the pointer (and
> it's compat version) within do_execve()?
> 
> Granted, within exit_robust_list(), the fetch_robust_entry() calls will
> fail and bail out of the function. So in essence, nothing bad should
> happen. However, that extra code should save us from entering
> exit_robust_list() in the first place.
> 
> CCing Ingo since the robust futex support was started by him.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Ani
>