Re: [PATCH v6 4/9] coredump: add coredump socket

Kuniyuki Iwashima
2025-05-13T02:16:45Z

From: Luca Boccassi <bluca@debian.org>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2025 02:09:24 +0100
> On Tue, 13 May 2025 at 01:18, Kuniyuki Iwashima <kuniyu@amazon.com> wrote:
> >
> > From: Luca Boccassi <bluca@debian.org>
> > Date: Mon, 12 May 2025 11:58:54 +0100
> > > On Mon, 12 May 2025 at 09:56, Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Coredumping currently supports two modes:
> > > >
> > > > (1) Dumping directly into a file somewhere on the filesystem.
> > > > (2) Dumping into a pipe connected to a usermode helper process
> > > > spawned as a child of the system_unbound_wq or kthreadd.
> > > >
> > > > For simplicity I'm mostly ignoring (1). There's probably still some
> > > > users of (1) out there but processing coredumps in this way can be
> > > > considered adventurous especially in the face of set*id binaries.
> > > >
> > > > The most common option should be (2) by now. It works by allowing
> > > > userspace to put a string into /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern like:
> > > >
> > > > |/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-coredump %P %u %g %s %t %c %h
> > > >
> > > > The "|" at the beginning indicates to the kernel that a pipe must be
> > > > used. The path following the pipe indicator is a path to a binary that
> > > > will be spawned as a usermode helper process. Any additional parameters
> > > > pass information about the task that is generating the coredump to the
> > > > binary that processes the coredump.
> > > >
> > > > In the example core_pattern shown above systemd-coredump is spawned as a
> > > > usermode helper. There's various conceptual consequences of this
> > > > (non-exhaustive list):
> > > >
> > > > - systemd-coredump is spawned with file descriptor number 0 (stdin)
> > > > connected to the read-end of the pipe. All other file descriptors are
> > > > closed. That specifically includes 1 (stdout) and 2 (stderr). This has
> > > > already caused bugs because userspace assumed that this cannot happen
> > > > (Whether or not this is a sane assumption is irrelevant.).
> > > >
> > > > - systemd-coredump will be spawned as a child of system_unbound_wq. So
> > > > it is not a child of any userspace process and specifically not a
> > > > child of PID 1. It cannot be waited upon and is in a weird hybrid
> > > > upcall which are difficult for userspace to control correctly.
> > > >
> > > > - systemd-coredump is spawned with full kernel privileges. This
> > > > necessitates all kinds of weird privilege dropping excercises in
> > > > userspace to make this safe.
> > > >
> > > > - A new usermode helper has to be spawned for each crashing process.
> > > >
> > > > This series adds a new mode:
> > > >
> > > > (3) Dumping into an abstract AF_UNIX socket.
> > > >
> > > > Userspace can set /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern to:
> > > >
> > > > @address SO_COOKIE
> > > >
> > > > The "@" at the beginning indicates to the kernel that the abstract
> > > > AF_UNIX coredump socket will be used to process coredumps. The address
> > > > is given by @address and must be followed by the socket cookie of the
> > > > coredump listening socket.
> > > >
> > > > The socket cookie is used to verify the socket connection. If the
> > > > coredump server restarts or crashes and someone recycles the socket
> > > > address the kernel will detect that the address has been recycled as the
> > > > socket cookie will have necessarily changed and refuse to connect.
> > >
> > > This dynamic/cookie prefix makes it impossible to use this with socket
> > > activation units. The way systemd-coredump works is that every
> > > instance is an independent templated unit, spawned when there's a
> > > connection to the private socket. If the path was fixed, we could just
> > > reuse the same mechanism, it would fit very nicely with minimal
> > > changes.
> >
> > Note this version does not use prefix. Now it requires users to
> > just pass the socket cookie via core_pattern so that the kernel
> > can verify the peer.
>
> Exactly - this means the pattern cannot be static in a sysctl.d early
> on boot anymore, and has to be set dynamically by <something>.

You missed the socket has to be created dynamically by <something>.

> This is
> a severe degradation over the status quo.
>
> > > But because you need a "server" to be permanently running, this means
> > > socket-based activation can no longer work, and systemd-coredump must
> > > switch to a persistently-running mode.
> >
> > The only thing for systemd to do is assign a cookie after socket creation.
> >
> > As long as systemd hold the file descriptor of the socket, you don't need
> > a dedicated "server" running permanently, and the fd can be passed around
> > to a spawned/activated process.
>
> There is no such facility, a socket is just a socket and there's no
> infrastructure to randomly extract random information from one and
> write it to some other random file in procfs,

As only one socket can be registered to core_pattern, the socket
must not be a random.

> and I don't see why we
> should add some super-special-case just for this,

Because this is a new special use case.

> it sounds really
> messy.
> Also sockets can be and in fact are routinely restarted (eg: on
> package upgrades), which would invalidate this whole scheme, and
> result in a very racy setup. When packages are upgraded it's one of
> the most complex workflows in modern distros, and it's very likely
> that things start crashing exactly at that point, and with this
> workflow it would mean we'll lose core files due to the race between
> restarting the socket unit and <something> updating the pattern
> accordingly.

Looks like you misunderstood the series.

As you need to specify the socket in core_pattern, there must be
only one socket that can receive core data, so the problem statement
is always true throughout the series.

kernel_connect() does not connect() to a random one out of sockets
that have the common prefix.

That's why the BPF was mentioned in the previous cover letter:

- Since unix_stream_connect() runs bpf programs during connect it's
possible to even redirect or multiplex coredumps to other sockets.

> Also we very much want to be able to spawn as many core handlers at
> the same time as needed, which I don't see how can work with a cookie
> that has to be unique per socket.

As said, you can just pass the fd of the coredump listener or a fd
accept()ed from the listener, depending on how you want to handle
this in userspace.