Re: [PATCH] Fix a race in pid generation that causes pids to be reused immediately.

Andi Kleen
2010-06-09T06:53:38Z

Salman <sqazi@google.com> writes:
> +++ b/kernel/pid.c
> @@ -153,8 +153,17 @@ static int alloc_pidmap(struct pid_namespace *pid_ns)
> if (likely(atomic_read(&map->nr_free))) {
> do {
> if (!test_and_set_bit(offset, map->page)) {
> + int prev;
> atomic_dec(&map->nr_free);
> - pid_ns->last_pid = pid;
> +
> + do {
> + prev = last;
> + last = cmpxchg(&pid_ns->last_pid,
> + prev,
> + pid);

At some point not all architectures in Linux supported cmpxchg,
so it was not allowed to use it unconditionally in portable code.

This might have changed now (at least the UP only architectures fall
back to a generic cmpxchg now I think), but I'm not sure you have full
coverage on SMP.

-Andi

--
ak@linux.intel.com -- Speaking for myself only.