On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 10:40 AM, Christian Brauner <christian.brau...@canonical.com> wrote: > On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 11:39:11AM +0100, Christian Brauner wrote: >> On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 08:50:22AM +0000, Daniel Colascione wrote: >> > On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 3:21 AM, Joel Fernandes <joe...@google.com> wrote: >> > > On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 3:11 PM Daniel Colascione <dan...@google.com> >> > > wrote: >> > >> >> > >> Add a simple proc-based kill interface. To use /proc/pid/kill, just >> > >> write the signal number in base-10 ASCII to the kill file of the >> > >> process to be killed: for example, 'echo 9 > /proc/$$/kill'. >> > >> >> > >> Semantically, /proc/pid/kill works like kill(2), except that the >> > >> process ID comes from the proc filesystem context instead of from an >> > >> explicit system call parameter. This way, it's possible to avoid races >> > >> between inspecting some aspect of a process and that process's PID >> > >> being reused for some other process. >> > >> >> > >> With /proc/pid/kill, it's possible to write a proper race-free and >> > >> safe pkill(1). An approximation follows. A real program might use >> > >> openat(2), having opened a process's /proc/pid directory explicitly, >> > >> with the directory file descriptor serving as a sort of "process >> > >> handle". >> > > >> > > How long does the 'inspection' procedure take? If its a short >> > > duration, then is PID reuse really an issue, I mean the PIDs are not >> > > reused until wrap around and the only reason this can be a problem is >> > > if you have the wrap around while the 'inspecting some aspect' >> > > procedure takes really long. >> > >> > It's a race. Would you make similar statements about a similar fix for >> > a race condition involving a mutex and a double-free just because the >> > race didn't crash most of the time? The issue I'm trying to fix here >> > is the same problem, one level higher up in the abstraction hierarchy. >> > >> > > Also the proc fs is typically not the right place for this. Some >> > > entries in proc are writeable, but those are for changing values of >> > > kernel data structures. The title of man proc(5) is "proc - process >> > > information pseudo-filesystem". So its "information" right? >> > >> > Why should userspace care whether a particular operation is "changing >> > [a] value[] of [a] kernel data structure" or something else? That >> > something in /proc is a struct field is an implementation detail. It's >> > the interface semantics that matters, and whether a particular >> > operation is achieved by changing a struct field or by making a >> > function call is irrelevant to userspace. Proc is a filesystem about >> > processes. Why shouldn't you be able to send a signal to a process via >> > proc? It's an operation involving processes. >> > >> > It's already possible to do things *to* processes via proc, e.g., >> > adjust OOM killer scores. Proc filesystem file descriptors are >> > userspace references to kernel-side struct pid instances, and as such, >> > make good process handles. There are already "verb" files in procfs, >> > such as /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches and /proc/sysrq-trigger. Why not add >> > a kill "verb", especially if it closes a race that can't be closed >> > some other way? >> > >> > You could implement this interface as a system call that took a procfs >> > directory file descriptor, but relative to this proposal, it would be >> > all downside. Such a thing would act just the same way as >> > /pric/pid/kill, and wouldn't be usable from the shell or from programs >> > that didn't want to use syscall(2). (Since glibc isn't adding new >> > system call wrappers.) AFAIK, the only downside of having a "kill" >> > file is the need for a string-to-integer conversion, but compared to >> > process killing, integer parsing is insignificant. >> > >> > > IMO without a really good reason for this, it could really be a hard >> > > sell but the RFC was worth it anyway to discuss it ;-) >> > >> > The traditional unix process API is down there at level -10 of Rusty >> > Russel's old bad API scale: "It's impossible to get right". The races >> > in the current API are unavoidable. That most programs don't hit these >> > races most of the time doesn't mean that the race isn't present. >> > >> > We've moved to a model where we identify other system resources, like >> > DRM fences, locks, sockets, and everything else via file descriptors. >> > This change is a step toward using procfs file descriptors to work >> > with processes, which makes the system more regular and easier to >> > reason about. A clean API that's possible to use correctly is a >> > worthwhile project. >> >> So I have been disucssing a new process API With David Howells, Kees >> Cook and a few others and I am working on an RFC/proposal for this. It >> is partially inspired by the new mount API. So I would like to block >> this patch until then. I would like to get this right very much and
It's good to hear that others are thinking about this problem. >> I >> don't think this is the way to go. Why not? Does your proposed API allow for a race-free pkill, with arbitrary selection criteria? This capability is a good litmus test for fixing the long-standing Unix process API issues.