I have a fun little test program for people to try. It creates zombies that persist until reboot, despite being reparented to init. Sometimes it creates processes that block SIGKILL, sit around with pending SIGKILL, or both.
You'll want: a. either assembly skills or the ability to run 32-bit x86 code b. the procps-3.2.7 release, so you can easily view the results c. the strace program, or some other ptrace-based debugger d. a recent kernel -- updated Fedora 5 or mainline 2.6.19 will do Compile like this: gcc -m32 -std=gnu99 -O2 -o cloninator cloninator.c Run like this: strace -f -F ./cloninator Let the program run for a bit, then do one of a few fun things: a. hit ^C to stop it b. run "killall -9 cloninator" to stop it c. send SIGKILL to the process group (the negative as PID) d. send SIGKILL to all your processes (use -1 as PID) View the results: ps -Ccloninator -mwostat,ppid,pid,tid,nlwp,pending,sigmask,sigignore,caught,wch I suggest trying other debuggers. Under a debugger I can't share, thousands of messed-up zombies get created in under a minute. With strace, you'll probably get a half dozen after a couple trys. You might try gdb, fenris, nightview, and anything else which uses ptrace to observe something. (Ideas?) Be sure to specify any options needed to follow child processes; you may need to comment out the CLONE_VFORK case for wimpy debuggers. BTW, we can probably now answer this question: $ egrep -i 'todo.*safe' kernel/*.c kernel/exit.c: // TODO: is this safe? kernel/exit.c: // TODO: is this safe? /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// #include <sys/mman.h> #include <signal.h> #include <sched.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/stat.h> #include <fcntl.h> #include <string.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <asm/unistd.h> #include <sys/ipc.h> #include <sys/shm.h> #include <stdbool.h> static void early_write(int fd, const void *buf, size_t count) { #if 0 unsigned long eax = __NR_write; // push and pop because -fPIC probably needs ebx for the GOT base pointer __asm__ __volatile__( "push %%ebx ; push %1 ; pop %%ebx ; int $0x80; pop %%ebx" :"=a"(eax) :"r"(fd),"c"(buf),"d"(count),"0"(eax) :"memory" ); #endif } static void p_str(char *s) { size_t count = strlen(s); early_write(STDERR_FILENO,s,count); } static void p_hex(unsigned long u) { char buf[9]; char x[] = "0123456789abcdef"; char *s = buf; s[8] = '\0'; int i = 8; while(i--) buf[7-i] = x[(u>>(i*4))&15]; early_write(STDERR_FILENO,buf,8); } static void p_dec(unsigned long u) { char buf[11]; char *s = buf+10; *s-- = '\0'; int count = 0; while(u || !count) { *s-- = u%10 + '0'; u /= 10; count++; } early_write(STDERR_FILENO,s+1,count); } #define FUTEX_WAIT 0 #define FUTEX_WAKE 1 typedef int lock_t; #define LOCK_INITIALIZER 0 static inline void init_lock(lock_t* l) { *l = 0; } // lock_add performs an atomic add and returns the resulting value static inline int lock_add(lock_t* l, int val) { int result = val; __asm__ __volatile__ ( "lock; xaddl %1, %0;" : "=m" (*l), "=r" (result) : "1" (result), "m" (*l) : "memory"); return result + val; // Return the value written to memory } // lock_bts_high_bit atomically tests and sets the high bit and returns // true if the bit was clear initially static inline bool lock_bts_high_bit(lock_t* l) { bool result; __asm__ __volatile__ ( "lock; btsl $31, %0;\n\t" "setnc %1;" : "=m" (*l), "=q" (result) : "m" (*l) : "memory"); return result; } static int futex(int* uaddr, int op, int val, const struct timespec*timeout, int*uaddr2, int val3) { (void)timeout; (void)uaddr2; (void)val3; int eax = __NR_futex; __asm__ __volatile__( "push %%ebx ; push %1 ; pop %%ebx ; int $0x80; pop %%ebx" :"=a"(eax) :"r"(uaddr),"c"(op),"d"(val),"0"(eax) :"memory" ); return eax; } // lock will wait for and lock a mutex static void lock(lock_t* l) { // Check the mutex and set held bit if (lock_bts_high_bit(l)) { // Got the mutex return; } // Increment wait count lock_add(l, 1); while (true) { // Check the mutex and set held bit if (lock_bts_high_bit(l)) { // Got the mutex, decrement wait count lock_add(l, -1); return; } int val = *l; // Ensure the mutex wasn't given up since the check if (!(val & 0x80000000)) continue; // Wait for the mutex futex(l, FUTEX_WAIT, val, NULL, NULL, 0); } } // unlock will release a mutex static void unlock(lock_t* l) { // Turn off lock held bit and check for waiters if (lock_add(l, 0x80000000) == 0) { // No waiters return; } // Waiters found, wake up one of them futex(l, FUTEX_WAKE, 1, NULL, NULL, 0); } unsigned toomany = 42; struct data { unsigned nprocs; lock_t lock; unsigned count; }; struct data *data; static struct data *get_shm(void) { void *addr; int shmid; // create shmid = shmget(IPC_PRIVATE, 42, IPC_CREAT | 0666); // attach addr = shmat(shmid, NULL, 0); // don't want it to stay around shmctl(shmid, IPC_RMID, NULL); return addr; } static int __attribute__((noreturn,regparm(3),used,unused)) do_stuff(void *arg) { lock(&data->lock); data->nprocs++; unlock(&data->lock); srand((unsigned long)arg); int time_to_die; for(;;) { time_to_die = 0; lock(&data->lock); if(data->nprocs > toomany) { data->nprocs--; time_to_die = 1; } unlock(&data->lock); if(time_to_die) { p_str("exiting\n"); // don't even think of getting hit by a signal while the stack is getting freed __asm__ __volatile__( "mov %%esp,%%ebx; andl $0xfffff000,%%ebx; int $0x80; mov %0,%%eax; int $0x80" ::"n"(__NR_exit),"c"(4096),"a"(__NR_munmap):"memory"); } char *msg = "cloning\n"; int clone_flags = CLONE_VM|CLONE_FS|CLONE_FILES | SIGCHLD; // if we leave off SIGCHLD, init won't see it! switch((int) (10.0 * (rand() / (RAND_MAX + 1.0)))) { int ret; default: sched_yield(); break; case 1 ... 3: p_str("forking\n"); __asm__ __volatile__("int $0x80":"=a"(ret):"0"(__NR_fork):"memory"); if(!ret) { // child of a fork lock(&data->lock); data->nprocs++; unlock(&data->lock); unsigned t1,t2; __asm__ __volatile__("rdtsc":"=a"(t1),"=d"(t2)); srand(t1^t2); continue; } if(ret<0) { char ec[80]; snprintf(ec, sizeof ec, "fork error %d (%s)\n",-ret,strerror(-ret)); p_str(ec); } break; case 4 ... 5: msg = "threading\n"; clone_flags |= (CLONE_THREAD|CLONE_SIGHAND); // FALL THROUGH case 6 ... 9: p_str(msg); ; char *stack = mmap(0, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, 0, 0); __asm__ __volatile__( "pushl %%ebx\n\t" "movl %[clone_flags],%%ebx\n\t" "int $0x80\n\t" "mov %%eax,%%ecx\n\t" "jecxz 1f\n\t" "jmp 2f\n" "1:\n\t" // child (ecx is 0) "rdtsc\n\t" "xorl %%edx,%%eax\n\t" "jmp *%[do_stuff]\n" // parent "2:\n\t" "popl %%ebx\n" :"=c"(ret) :"a"(__NR_clone) ,"0"(stack+4096) ,[do_stuff]"D"(do_stuff) ,[clone_flags]"d"(clone_flags) :"memory" ); if(ret<0) { munmap(stack,4096); char ec[80]; snprintf(ec, sizeof ec, "thread error %d (%s)\n",-ret,strerror(-ret)); p_str(ec); } break; } } } extern const char * const sys_siglist[]; static void signal_handler(int signo){ char mb[80]; snprintf(mb, sizeof mb, "dying with signal %d (%s)\n", signo, sys_siglist[signo]); p_str(mb); __asm__ __volatile__( "mov %0,%%ebx; int $0x80" ::"r"(signo+128),"a"(__NR_exit):"memory"); } static char stack[10240]; int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { if(sizeof(void*)>4) return 7; nice(19); #if 0 stack_t ss = { .ss_sp = stack, .ss_flags = 0, .ss_size = sizeof stack, }; sigaltstack(&ss,NULL); struct sigaction sa; int i = 32; memset(&sa, 0, sizeof(sa)); sa.sa_handler = signal_handler; sigfillset(&sa.sa_mask); while(i--) switch(i){ default: sigaction(i,&sa,NULL); case 0: case SIGINT: /* ^C */ case SIGTSTP: /* ^Z */ case SIGTTOU: /* see stty(1) man page */ case SIGQUIT: /* ^\ */ case SIGPROF: /* profiling */ case SIGKILL: /* can not catch */ case SIGSTOP: /* can not catch */ case SIGWINCH: /* don't care if window size changes */ ; } #endif data = get_shm(); data->nprocs = 1; signal(SIGCHLD,SIG_IGN); char *stack = mmap(0,4096,PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE,MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS,0,0); __asm__ __volatile__("mov %0, %%esp ; jmp *%1"::"r"(stack+4096), "r"(do_stuff):"memory"); return 0; } - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/