Re: [PATCH] kill_something_info: don't take tasklist_lock for pid==-1 case

Oleg Nesterov
2008-05-31T16:53:56Z

Sorry, sorry for the delay,

On 05/20, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>
> Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru> writes:
>
> > On 03/25, Atsushi Tsuji wrote:
> >>
> >> This patch avoid taking tasklist_lock in kill_something_info() when
> >> the pid is -1. It can convert to rcu_read_lock() for this case because
> >> group_send_sig_info() doesn't need tasklist_lock.
> >>
> >> This patch is for 2.6.25-rc5-mm1.
> >>
>
> > Hmm. Yes, group_send_sig_info() doesn't need tasklist_lock. But we
> > take tasklist_lock to "freeze" the tasks list, so that we can't miss
> > a new forked process.
> >
> > Same for __kill_pgrp_info(), we take tasklist to kill the whole group
> > "atomically".
> >
> >
> > However. Is it really needed? copy_process() returns -ERESTARTNOINTR
> > if signal_pending(), and the new task is always placed at the tail
> > of the list. Looks like nobody can escape the signal, at least fatal
> > or SIGSTOP.
>
>
> Call me paranoid but I don't think there is any guarantee without a lock
> that we will hit the -ERESTARTNOITR check for new processes. I think we
> have a slight race where the fork process may not have received the signal
> (because it is near the tail of the list) but the new process would be
> added to the list immediately after we read it's pointer.

Hmm. could you clarify? I tend to always trust you, just can't understand
the text above...

However, I think this patch adds another subtle race which I missed before.

Let's suppose that the task has two threads, A (== main thread) and B. A has
already exited, B does exec.

In that case it is possible that (without tasklist_lock) kill_something_info()
sends the signal to the old leader (A), but before group_send_sig_info(A)
takes ->siglock B switches the leader and does release_task(A). In that
group_send_sig_info()->lock_task_sighand() fails and we miss the process.

> That is subtle. Switching to the per task siglock for protection.
>
> > Except: We don't send the signal to /sbin/init. This means that (say)
> > kill(-1, SIGKILL) can miss the task forked by init. Note that this
> > task could be forked even before we start kill_something_info(), but
> > without tasklist there is no guarantee we will see it on the ->tasks
> > list.
>
> Actually we do sent the signal to init but we shouldn't,

Note the (broken) "p->pid > 1" check, kill_something_info() skips init.
Not that it matters though.

Oleg.