Re: For review: pid_namespaces(7) man page

[ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman)]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Rob,
>
> On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 5:01 AM, Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> wrote:
>> On 02/28/2013 05:24:07 AM, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
> [...]
>
>>> DESCRIPTION
>>>        For an overview of namespaces, see namespaces(7).
>>>
>>>        PID  namespaces  isolate  the  process ID number space, meaning
>>>        that processes in different PID namespaces can  have  the  same
>>>        PID.
>>
>>
>> Um, perhaps "different processes"? Slightly repetitive, but trying to avoid
>> the potential misreading that "a processes can have the same PID in
>> different namespaces". (A single process can't be a member of more than one
>> namespace. This is not about selective visibility.)
>
> I'm not sure this clarifies things...
>
>>> PID namespaces allow containers to migrate to a new host
>>>        while the processes inside  the  container  maintain  the  same
>>>        PIDs.
>>
>>
>> I thought suspend/resume a container was the simple case. Migration to a new
>> host is built on top of that. (On resume in a new container on the same
>> system, if other stuff is going on in the system so the available PIDs have
>> shifted.)
>
> I'll add some words here on suspend/resume.
>
>>>        Likewise, a process in an ancestor namespace can—subject to the
>>>        usual permission checks described in  kill(2)—send  signals  to
>>>        the  "init" process of a child PID namespace only if the "init"
>>>        process has established a handler for that signal.  (Within the
>>>        handler,  the  siginfo_t si_pid field described in sigaction(2)
>>>        will be zero.)  SIGKILL or SIGSTOP are  treated  exceptionally:
>>>        these signals are forcibly delivered when sent from an ancestor
>>>        PID namespace.  Neither of these signals can be caught  by  the
>>>        "init" process, and so will result in the usual actions associ‐
>>>        ated with those signals (respectively, terminating and stopping
>>>        the process).
>>
>>
>> If SIGKILL to init is propogated to all the children of init, is SIGSTOP
>> also propogated to all the children? (I.E. will SIGSTOP to container's init
>> suspend the whole container, and will SIGCONT resume the whole container? If
>> the latter, will it only resume processes that weren't previously stopped?
>> :)
>
> Covered by Eric.
>
>>>        To put things another way: a process's PID namespace membership
>>>        is determined when the process is created and cannot be changed
>>>        thereafter.  Among other things, this means that  the  parental
>>>        relationship between processes mirrors the parental between PID
>>
>>
>> mirrors the relationship
>
> Thanks.
>
>>>        namespaces: the parent of a  process  is  either  in  the  same
>>>        namespace or resides in the immediate parent PID namespace.
>>>
>>>        Every  thread  in  a process must be in the same PID namespace.
>>>        For this reason, the two following call sequences will fail:
>>>
>>>            unshare(CLONE_NEWPID);
>>>            clone(..., CLONE_VM, ...);    /* Fails */
>>>
>>>            setns(fd, CLONE_NEWPID);
>>>            clone(..., CLONE_VM, ...);    /* Fails */
>>
>>
>> They fail with -EUNDOCUMENTED
>
> Added EINVAL, as per Eric's reply. (Eric does that error also apply
> for the two new cases you added?).
>
>>>        Because the above unshare(2) and setns(2) calls only change the
>>>        PID  namespace  for created children, the clone(2) calls neces‐
>>>        sarily put the new thread in a different PID namespace from the
>>>        calling thread.
>>
>>
>> Um, no they don't. They fail. That's the point.
>
> (Good catch.)
>
>> They _would_ put the new
>> thread in a different PID namespace, which breaks the definition of threads.
>>
>> How about:
>>
>> The above unshare(2) and setns(2) calls change the PID namespace of
>> children created by subsequent clone(2) calls, which is incompatible
>> with CLONE_VM.
>
> I decided on:
>
>        The  point  here is that unshare(2) and setns(2) change the PID
>        namespace for created children but not for the calling process,
>        while  clone(2) CLONE_VM specifies the creation of a new thread
>        in the same process.

Can we make that "for all new tasks created" instead of "created
children"

Othewise someone might expect CLONE_THREAD would work as you
CLONE_THREAD creates a thread and not a child...

Eric