On 25 Feb 16:10, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> > pid_t pid = fork();
> > if (pid > 0) {
> > register_interest_for_pid(pid);
> > if (waitpid(pid, NULL, WNOHANG) > 0)
> > {
> > /* We might have raced with exit() */
> > }
>
> Just in case... Even with this patch the code above is still "racy" if the
> child is multi-threaded. Plus it should obviously filter-out subthreads.
> And afaics there is no way to make it reliable, even if you change the
> code above so that waitpid() is called only after the last thread exits
> WNOHANG still can fail.
> Not that I am not arguing with this change. Although I hope that someone
> can confirm that netlink_broadcast() is safe even if release_task(current)
> was already called, so that the caller has no pids, sighand, is not visible
> via /proc/, etc.
I was too succinct, I think. What I am trying to do is to close a race
when a short-lived *process* dies before register_interest_for_pid()
interprets the connector message correctly, (i.e realizes this is an
exit message for a pid that the parent created).
For example, let's say that the parent has an independent thread that
just reads from the netlink socket or uses a BPF filter to see only the
events it cares about. In that case, it's possible that the exit
connector message will be discarded (either by a reader thread or the
BPF filter) before the parent realizes it should care about messages
about a new pid (the child pid)
You clarified for me that a ptraced process is a case where this race
could still happen. That's a good point. Fortunately, in the case of a
short-lived process, this is not a common scenario.
If we ignore the ptrace() case, I am not sure I see the problem with
multithreaded processes. Even if the main thread exits right away, what is
important is that:
- *either* the exit connector message of the last thread that dies is be
seen after register_interest_for_pid completes
- *or* that waitpid(WNOHANG) succeeds right after
register_interest_for_pid()
You seem to say it's possible for all threads to have completed
exit_notify() and sent their exit message to the connector before
register_interest_for_pid() does its job and still have waitpid(WNOHANG)
fails. Is it correct? If so, could you give a bit more details on how
this could happen?
My understanding is that if all threads exited before waitpid() is
called, exit->state will be set to EXIT_ZOMBIE for the pid and that
delay_group_leader() will be false (because all sub-threads have
exited), so that waitpid(WNOHANG) will successfully reap the process.
What am I missing?
Guillaume.
--
Guillaume Morin <guilla...@morinfr.org>
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