Re: RFC: Use of user space handler vs. SIG_DFL on forced signals

Dmitry Vyukov
2022-03-22T13:26:16Z

On Tue, 22 Mar 2022 at 11:42, Marco Elver <elver@google.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Currently force_sig_info_to_task() will always unblock a blocked signal
> but deliver the signal to SIG_DFL:
>
> [...]
> * Note: If we unblock the signal, we always reset it to SIG_DFL,
> * since we do not want to have a signal handler that was blocked
> * be invoked when user space had explicitly blocked it.
> [...]
>
> Is this requirement part of the POSIX spec? Or is the intent simply to
> attempt to do the least-bad thing?
>
> The reason I'm asking is that we've encountered rare crashes with the
> new SIGTRAP on perf events, due to patterns like this:
>
> <set up SIGTRAP on a perf event>
> ...
> sigset_t s;
> sigemptyset(&s);
> sigaddset(&s, SIGTRAP | <and others>);
> sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, &s, ...);
> ...
> <perf event triggers>
>
> When the perf event triggers, while SIGTRAP is blocked, force_sig_perf()
> will force the signal, but revert back to the default handler, thus
> terminating the task.
>
> For other types of signals, is the assumption here that if user space
> blocked the signal, it might not be able to handle it in the first
> place?
>
> For SIGTRAP on perf events we found this makes the situation worse,
> since the cause of the signal wasn't an error condition, but explicitly
> requested monitoring. In this case, we do in fact want delivery of the
> signal to user space even if the signal is blocked, i.e.
> force_sig_perf() should be an unblockable forced synchronous signal to
> user space!
>
> If there is no good reason to choose SIG_DFL, our preference would be to
> allow this kind of "unblockable forced" signal to the user space handler
> for force_sig_perf() -- with the caveat whoever requests SIGTRAP on perf
> events must be able to provide a handler that can always run safely. But
> we think that's better than crashing.
>
> The below patch would do what we want, but would like to first confirm
> if this is "within spec".
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> -- Marco
>
> ------ >8 ------
>
> From: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
> Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2022 22:18:09 +0100
> Subject: [PATCH RFC] signal: Always unblock signal to user space for
> force_sig_perf()
>
> With SIGTRAP on perf events, we have encountered termination of
> processes due to user space attempting to block delivery of SIGTRAP.
> Consider this case:
>
> <set up SIGTRAP on a perf event>
> ...
> sigset_t s;
> sigemptyset(&s);
> sigaddset(&s, SIGTRAP | <and others>);
> sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, &s, ...);
> ...
> <perf event triggers>
>
> When the perf event triggers, while SIGTRAP is blocked, force_sig_perf()
> will force the signal, but revert back to the default handler, thus
> terminating the task.
>
> With forced signals, the whole premise of sigprocmask() is invalidated
> since the signal is still delivered, only to the default signal handler.
> The assumption here is that if user space blocked the signal, it might
> not be able to handle it in the first place.
>
> However, for SIGTRAP on perf events we found this makes the situation
> worse, since the cause of the signal wasn't an error condition, but
> explicitly requested monitoring. In this case, we do in fact want
> delivery of the signal to user space even if the signal is blocked, i.e.
> force_sig_perf() should be an unblockable forced synchronous signal to
> user space.
>
> Fixes: 97ba62b27867 ("perf: Add support for SIGTRAP on perf events")
> Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
> ---
> kernel/signal.c | 18 +++++++++++++-----
> 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/signal.c b/kernel/signal.c
> index 38602738866e..04b7a178a5f3 100644
> --- a/kernel/signal.c
> +++ b/kernel/signal.c
> @@ -1303,6 +1303,7 @@ int do_send_sig_info(int sig, struct kernel_siginfo *info, struct task_struct *p
>
> enum sig_handler {
> HANDLER_CURRENT, /* If reachable use the current handler */
> + HANDLER_UNBLOCK, /* Use the current handler even if blocked */
> HANDLER_SIG_DFL, /* Always use SIG_DFL handler semantics */
> HANDLER_EXIT, /* Only visible as the process exit code */
> };
> @@ -1311,9 +1312,11 @@ enum sig_handler {
> * Force a signal that the process can't ignore: if necessary
> * we unblock the signal and change any SIG_IGN to SIG_DFL.
> *
> - * Note: If we unblock the signal, we always reset it to SIG_DFL,
> - * since we do not want to have a signal handler that was blocked
> - * be invoked when user space had explicitly blocked it.
> + * Note: If we unblock the signal and handler != HANDLER_UNBLOCK, we always
> + * reset it to SIG_DFL, since we do not want to have a signal handler that was
> + * blocked be invoked when user space had explicitly blocked it. If handler is
> + * HANDLER_UNBLOCK, user space will always receive the signal and is expected to
> + * provide a handler that is safe in all contexts.
> *
> * We don't want to have recursive SIGSEGV's etc, for example,
> * that is why we also clear SIGNAL_UNKILLABLE.
> @@ -1332,7 +1335,8 @@ force_sig_info_to_task(struct kernel_siginfo *info, struct task_struct *t,
> ignored = action->sa.sa_handler == SIG_IGN;
> blocked = sigismember(&t->blocked, sig);
> if (blocked || ignored || (handler != HANDLER_CURRENT)) {
> - action->sa.sa_handler = SIG_DFL;
> + if (handler != HANDLER_UNBLOCK)
> + action->sa.sa_handler = SIG_DFL;
> if (handler == HANDLER_EXIT)
> action->sa.sa_flags |= SA_IMMUTABLE;
> if (blocked) {
> @@ -1816,7 +1820,11 @@ int force_sig_perf(void __user *addr, u32 type, u64 sig_data)
> info.si_perf_data = sig_data;
> info.si_perf_type = type;
>
> - return force_sig_info(&info);
> + /*
> + * Delivering SIGTRAP on perf events must unblock delivery to not
> + * kill the task, but attempt delivery to the user space handler.
> + */
> + return force_sig_info_to_task(&info, current, HANDLER_UNBLOCK);

It seems that in this case we almost don't use any of the logic in
force_sig_info_to_task(). It effectively reduces to the call to
send_signal() protected by the lock. Maybe we should call something
like do_send_sig_info() directly?

> }
>
> /**
> --
> 2.35.1.894.gb6a874cedc-goog
>