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Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 14:12:47 +0800
From: Xishi Qiu <qiuxishi@huawei.com>
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To: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
CC: Yisheng Xie <xieyisheng1@huawei.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
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        <guohanjun@huawei.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] kernel/sysctl: return -EINVAL if write invalid val to
 ulong type sysctl
References: <1480501852-36968-1-git-send-email-xieyisheng1@huawei.com> <20161130133358.d508cc8931be6f08ee88561f@linux-foundation.org> <97ca5661-fcae-fe34-810b-d5c6843289e7@huawei.com> <87fum616eg.fsf@xmission.com>
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On 2016/12/3 3:24, Eric W. Biederman wrote:

> Yisheng Xie <xieyisheng1@huawei.com> writes:
> 
>> On 2016/12/1 5:33, Andrew Morton wrote:
>>> On Wed, 30 Nov 2016 18:30:52 +0800 Yisheng Xie <xieyisheng1@huawei.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I tried to echo an invalid value to an unsigned long type sysctl on
>>>> 4.9.0-rc6:
>>>>    linux:~# cat /proc/sys/vm/user_reserve_kbytes
>>>>    131072
>>>>    linux:~# echo -1 > /proc/sys/vm/user_reserve_kbytes
>>>>    linux:~# cat /proc/sys/vm/user_reserve_kbytes
>>>>    131072
>>>>
>>>> The echo operation got error and the value do not write to
>>>> user_reserve_kbytes, however, user do not know it until checking
>>>> the value again.
>>>>
>>>> This patch return -EINVAL when write an invalid value to unsigned
>>>> long type sysctl to make user know  what happened without
>>>> checking its value once more, just as what proc_douintvec do.
>>>
>>> hmpf.
>>>
>>> # echo 18446744073709551615  > /proc/sys/vm/user_reserve_kbytes                                             
>>> # cat /proc/sys/vm/user_reserve_kbytes
>>> 18446744073709551615
>>>
>>> I think that when taking in an unsigned long the kernel should simply
>>> treat -1 as 0xffffffff (or 0xffffffffffffffff).  It's natural and
>>> normal and everyone knows what it means?
>>>
>> Hi Andrew,
>> Thank you for your reply.
>> Do you means it should be like this:
>>   # echo -1 > /proc/sys/vm/user_reserve_kbytes
>>   # cat /proc/sys/vm/user_reserve_kbytes
>>   18446744073709551615
>>
>> I looks ok to me, however, I not sure whether other code in the kernel
>> will also use its complement if user write a negative number for an
>> unsigned long.  Does anyone have other opinion ?
> 
> Largely we need to be very careful with changing these functions as
> they have been around for a long time, and have a very diverse set of
> users.
> 
> So while changes are possible a reasonable argument needs to be made
> that nothing in userspace cares.
> 
> Eric
> 

Hi Eric,

This patch is aimed to change the return value if write invalid value to
ulong type sysctl, just to keep the same as int type sysctl.

Thanks,
Xishi Qiu

> .
>