Re: 2.6.25.3: su gets stuck for root

Vegard Nossum
2008-06-02T10:39:38Z

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 12:16 PM, Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
>> On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:31:34 +0930
>> David Newall <davidn@davidnewall.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Alan Cox wrote:
>>> > Not really. The task would get suspended if it attempted to change the
>>> > tty settings while not being session leader. This is part of the POSIX
>>> > and BSD job control.
>>>
>>> I haven't heard about this new restriction, but it begs the observation
>>> that stty, when forked from a shell (the usual case), is never a session
>>> leader.
>>
>> Sorry I mean part of the current session. I was thinking about the
>> specific case of bash or the ssh->bash setup where the question would be
>> whether the shell was session leader.
>>
>> Someone who can dup this needs to instrument it in tty_ioctl really.
>
> Hi,
>
> I have written a short test program that seems to reproduce it for me
> (see attachment), even though the original su/stty stuff wouldn't.
>
> Basically, the strace shows this:
> ioctl(0, SNDCTL_TMR_START or TCSETS, {B38400 opost isig icanon echo
> ...}) = ? ERESTARTSYS (To be restarted)
> --- SIGTTOU (Stopped (tty output)) @ 0 (0) ---
> --- SIGTTOU (Stopped (tty output)) @ 0 (0) ---
> ioctl(0, SNDCTL_TMR_START or TCSETS, {B38400 opost isig icanon echo
> ...}) = ? ERESTARTSYS (To be restarted)
> --- SIGTTOU (Stopped (tty output)) @ 0 (0) ---
> --- SIGTTOU (Stopped (tty output)) @ 0 (0) ---
> ... (repeating)
>
> The exact code path triggering this seems to be:
>
> tcsetattr() -> ioctl(TCSETS) -> set_termios() -> tty_check_change()
>
> This is on a 2.6.24.5-85.fc8 kernel.
>
> I don't know what's wrong, but I hope this helps.

The error seems that tty_check_change() returns -ERESTARTSYS.
Shouldn't it be EINTR to allow the signal to be processed and let the
process decide whether to retry the tcsetattr()?

Vegard

--
"The animistic metaphor of the bug that maliciously sneaked in while
the programmer was not looking is intellectually dishonest as it
disguises that the error is the programmer's own creation."
-- E. W. Dijkstra, EWD1036