Re: [RFC][PATCH 2/2] treewide: Have the task->flags & PF_KTHREAD check use the helper functions

Kees Cook
2025-04-25T23:09:12Z

On Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 04:41:22PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> From: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
>
> Getting the check if a task is a kernel thread or a user thread can be
> error prone as it's not easy to see the difference.
>
> if (!(task->flags & PF_KTHREAD))
>
> Is not immediately obvious that it's checking for a user thread.
>
> if (is_user_thread(task))
>
> Is much easier to review, as it is obvious that it is checking if the task
> is a user thread.
>
> Using a coccinelle script, convert these checks over to using either
> is_user_thread() or is_kernel_thread().
>
> $ cat kthread.cocci
> @@
> identifier task;
> @@
> - !(task->flags & PF_KTHREAD)
> + is_user_thread(task)
> @@
> identifier task;
> @@
> - (task->flags & PF_KTHREAD) == 0
> + is_user_thread(task)
> @@
> identifier task;
> @@
> - (task->flags & PF_KTHREAD) != 0
> + is_kernel_thread(task)
> @@
> identifier task;
> @@
> - task->flags & PF_KTHREAD
> + is_kernel_thread(task)
>
> $ spatch --dir --include-headers kthread.cocci . > /tmp/t.patch
> $ patch -p1 < /tmp/t.patch
>
> Make sure to undo the conversion of the helper functions themselves!
>
> $ git show include/linux/sched.h | patch -p1 -R

FYI, the "file in" test can be helpful. I use it to exclude tools and
samples regularly, and *I think* it would work for excluding individual
files too:

@name_of_rule depends !(file in "tools") && !(file in "samples")@

I've been collecting random notes like this here:

https://github.com/kees/kernel-tools/tree/trunk/coccinelle

> tools/sched_ext/scx_central.bpf.c | 2 +-
> tools/sched_ext/scx_flatcg.bpf.c | 2 +-
> tools/sched_ext/scx_qmap.bpf.c | 2 +-

I think these are fine. The Makefile is pulling in standard kbuild
Makefiles, so I think the correct include directories (outside of
tools/) are being used.

But yeah, easy mechanical change and a readability improvement. :)

Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>

--
Kees Cook