02 Oct, 2006

3 commits

  • There are a few places in the kernel where the init task is signaled. The
    ctrl+alt+del sequence is one them. It kills a task, usually init, using a
    cached pid (cad_pid).

    This patch replaces the pid_t by a struct pid to avoid pid wrap around
    problem. The struct pid is initialized at boot time in init() and can be
    modified through systctl with

    /proc/sys/kernel/cad_pid

    [ I haven't found any distro using it ? ]

    It also introduces a small helper routine kill_cad_pid() which is used
    where it seemed ok to use cad_pid instead of pid 1.

    [akpm@osdl.org: cleanups, build fix]
    Signed-off-by: Cedric Le Goater
    Cc: Eric W. Biederman
    Cc: Martin Schwidefsky
    Cc: Paul Mackerras
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Cedric Le Goater
     
  • Replace references to system_utsname to the per-process uts namespace
    where appropriate. This includes things like uname.

    Changes: Per Eric Biederman's comments, use the per-process uts namespace
    for ELF_PLATFORM, sunrpc, and parts of net/ipv4/ipconfig.c

    [jdike@addtoit.com: UML fix]
    [clg@fr.ibm.com: cleanup]
    [akpm@osdl.org: build fix]
    Signed-off-by: Serge E. Hallyn
    Cc: Kirill Korotaev
    Cc: "Eric W. Biederman"
    Cc: Herbert Poetzl
    Cc: Andrey Savochkin
    Signed-off-by: Cedric Le Goater
    Cc: Jeff Dike
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Serge E. Hallyn
     
  • When kprobe is re-entered, the re-entered kprobe kernel path will will call
    atomic_notifier_call_chain function, if this function is kprobed that will
    incur numerous kprobe recursive fault. This patch disallows kprobes on
    atomic_notifier_call_chain function.

    Signed-off-by: bibo, mao
    Signed-off-by: Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    bibo,mao
     

01 Oct, 2006

1 commit


30 Sep, 2006

2 commits


26 Sep, 2006

1 commit

  • For NUMA optimization and some other algorithms it is useful to have a fast
    to get the current CPU and node numbers in user space.

    x86-64 added a fast way to do this in a vsyscall. This adds a generic
    syscall for other architectures to make it a generic portable facility.

    I expect some of them will also implement it as a faster vsyscall.

    The cache is an optimization for the x86-64 vsyscall optimization. Since
    what the syscall returns is an approximation anyways and user space
    often wants very fast results it can be cached for some time. The norma
    methods to get this information in user space are relatively slow

    The vsyscall is in a better position to manage the cache because it has direct
    access to a fast time stamp (jiffies). For the generic syscall optimization
    it doesn't help much, but enforce a valid argument to keep programs
    portable

    I only added an i386 syscall entry for now. Other architectures can follow
    as needed.

    AK: Also added some cleanups from Andrew Morton

    Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen

    Andi Kleen
     

13 Jul, 2006

1 commit

  • Based on a patch from Ernie Petrides

    During security research, Red Hat discovered a behavioral flaw in core
    dump handling. A local user could create a program that would cause a
    core file to be dumped into a directory they would not normally have
    permissions to write to. This could lead to a denial of service (disk
    consumption), or allow the local user to gain root privileges.

    The prctl() system call should never allow to set "dumpable" to the
    value 2. Especially not for non-privileged users.

    This can be split into three cases:

    1) running as root -- then core dumps will already be done as root,
    and so prctl(PR_SET_DUMPABLE, 2) is not useful

    2) running as non-root w/setuid-to-root -- this is the debatable case

    3) running as non-root w/setuid-to-non-root -- then you definitely
    do NOT want "dumpable" to get set to 2 because you have the
    privilege escalation vulnerability

    With case #2, the only potential usefulness is for a program that has
    designed to run with higher privilege (than the user invoking it) that
    wants to be able to create root-owned root-validated core dumps. This
    might be useful as a debugging aid, but would only be safe if the program
    had done a chdir() to a safe directory.

    There is no benefit to a production setuid-to-root utility, because it
    shouldn't be dumping core in the first place. If this is true, then the
    same debugging aid could also be accomplished with the "suid_dumpable"
    sysctl.

    Signed-off-by: Marcel Holtmann
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Marcel Holtmann
     

01 Jul, 2006

1 commit


26 Jun, 2006

2 commits

  • - proper prototypes for the following functions:
    - ctrl_alt_del() (in include/linux/reboot.h)
    - getrusage() (in include/linux/resource.h)
    - make the following needlessly global functions static:
    - kernel_restart_prepare()
    - kernel_kexec()

    [akpm@osdl.org: compile fix]
    Signed-off-by: Adrian Bunk
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Adrian Bunk
     
  • Since raw_notifier chains don't benefit from any centralized locking
    protections, they shouldn't suffer from the associated limitations. Under
    some circumstances it might make sense for a raw_notifier callout routine
    to unregister itself from the notifier chain. This patch (as678) changes
    the notifier core to allow for such things.

    Signed-off-by: Alan Stern
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Alan Stern
     

23 Jun, 2006

3 commits

  • kernel/sys.c doesn't have anything in it relying on linux/init.h -
    remove the include.

    Signed-off-by: Jes Sorensen
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Jes Sorensen
     
  • * git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulus/powerpc: (139 commits)
    [POWERPC] re-enable OProfile for iSeries, using timer interrupt
    [POWERPC] support ibm,extended-*-frequency properties
    [POWERPC] Extra sanity check in EEH code
    [POWERPC] Dont look for class-code in pci children
    [POWERPC] Fix mdelay badness on shared processor partitions
    [POWERPC] disable floating point exceptions for init
    [POWERPC] Unify ppc syscall tables
    [POWERPC] mpic: add support for serial mode interrupts
    [POWERPC] pseries: Print PCI slot location code on failure
    [POWERPC] spufs: one more fix for 64k pages
    [POWERPC] spufs: fail spu_create with invalid flags
    [POWERPC] spufs: clear class2 interrupt status before wakeup
    [POWERPC] spufs: fix Makefile for "make clean"
    [POWERPC] spufs: remove stop_code from struct spu
    [POWERPC] spufs: fix spu irq affinity setting
    [POWERPC] spufs: further abstract priv1 register access
    [POWERPC] spufs: split the Cell BE support into generic and platform dependant parts
    [POWERPC] spufs: dont try to access SPE channel 1 count
    [POWERPC] spufs: use kzalloc in create_spu
    [POWERPC] spufs: fix initial state of wbox file
    ...

    Manually resolved conflicts in:
    drivers/net/phy/Makefile
    include/asm-powerpc/spu.h

    Linus Torvalds
     
  • Avoid taking tasklist_lock for at getrusage for the multithreaded case too.
    We don't need to take the tasklist lock for thread traversal of a process
    since Oleg's do-__unhash_process-under-siglock.patch and related work.

    Signed-off-by: Ravikiran Thirumalai
    Cc: Oleg Nesterov
    Cc: "Eric W. Biederman"
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Ravikiran G Thirumalai
     

09 Jun, 2006

1 commit

  • This new prctl is intended for changing the execution mode of the
    processor, on processors that support both a little-endian mode and a
    big-endian mode. It is intended for use by programs such as
    instruction set emulators (for example an x86 emulator on PowerPC),
    which may find it convenient to use the processor in an alternate
    endianness mode when executing translated instructions.

    Note that this does not imply the existence of a fully-fledged ABI for
    both endiannesses, or of compatibility code for converting system
    calls done in the non-native endianness mode. The program is expected
    to arrange for all of its system call arguments to be presented in the
    native endianness.

    Switching between big and little-endian mode will require some care in
    constructing the instruction sequence for the switch. Generally the
    instructions up to the instruction that invokes the prctl system call
    will have to be in the old endianness, and subsequent instructions
    will have to be in the new endianness.

    Signed-off-by: Anton Blanchard
    Signed-off-by: Paul Mackerras

    Anton Blanchard
     

01 Apr, 2006

1 commit

  • The core problem: setsid fails if it is called by init. The effect in 2.6.16
    and the earlier kernels that have this problem is that if you do a "ps -j 1 or
    ps -ej 1" you will see that init and several of it's children have process
    group and session == 0. Instead of process group == session == 1. Despite
    init calling setsid.

    The reason it fails is that daemonize calls set_special_pids(1,1) on kernel
    threads that are launched before /sbin/init is called.

    The only remaining effect in that current->signal->leader == 0 for init
    instead of 1. And the setsid call fails. No one has noticed because
    /sbin/init does not check the return value of setsid.

    In 2.4 where we don't have the pidhash table, and daemonize doesn't exist
    setsid actually works for init.

    I care a lot about pid == 1 not being a special case that we leave broken,
    because of the container/jail work that I am doing.

    - Carefully allow init (pid == 1) to call setsid despite the kernel using
    its session.

    - Use find_task_by_pid instead of find_pid because find_pid taking a
    pidtype is going away.

    Signed-off-by: Eric W. Biederman
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Eric W. Biederman
     

29 Mar, 2006

2 commits


28 Mar, 2006

1 commit

  • The kernel's implementation of notifier chains is unsafe. There is no
    protection against entries being added to or removed from a chain while the
    chain is in use. The issues were discussed in this thread:

    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=113018709002036&w=2

    We noticed that notifier chains in the kernel fall into two basic usage
    classes:

    "Blocking" chains are always called from a process context
    and the callout routines are allowed to sleep;

    "Atomic" chains can be called from an atomic context and
    the callout routines are not allowed to sleep.

    We decided to codify this distinction and make it part of the API. Therefore
    this set of patches introduces three new, parallel APIs: one for blocking
    notifiers, one for atomic notifiers, and one for "raw" notifiers (which is
    really just the old API under a new name). New kinds of data structures are
    used for the heads of the chains, and new routines are defined for
    registration, unregistration, and calling a chain. The three APIs are
    explained in include/linux/notifier.h and their implementation is in
    kernel/sys.c.

    With atomic and blocking chains, the implementation guarantees that the chain
    links will not be corrupted and that chain callers will not get messed up by
    entries being added or removed. For raw chains the implementation provides no
    guarantees at all; users of this API must provide their own protections. (The
    idea was that situations may come up where the assumptions of the atomic and
    blocking APIs are not appropriate, so it should be possible for users to
    handle these things in their own way.)

    There are some limitations, which should not be too hard to live with. For
    atomic/blocking chains, registration and unregistration must always be done in
    a process context since the chain is protected by a mutex/rwsem. Also, a
    callout routine for a non-raw chain must not try to register or unregister
    entries on its own chain. (This did happen in a couple of places and the code
    had to be changed to avoid it.)

    Since atomic chains may be called from within an NMI handler, they cannot use
    spinlocks for synchronization. Instead we use RCU. The overhead falls almost
    entirely in the unregister routine, which is okay since unregistration is much
    less frequent that calling a chain.

    Here is the list of chains that we adjusted and their classifications. None
    of them use the raw API, so for the moment it is only a placeholder.

    ATOMIC CHAINS
    -------------
    arch/i386/kernel/traps.c: i386die_chain
    arch/ia64/kernel/traps.c: ia64die_chain
    arch/powerpc/kernel/traps.c: powerpc_die_chain
    arch/sparc64/kernel/traps.c: sparc64die_chain
    arch/x86_64/kernel/traps.c: die_chain
    drivers/char/ipmi/ipmi_si_intf.c: xaction_notifier_list
    kernel/panic.c: panic_notifier_list
    kernel/profile.c: task_free_notifier
    net/bluetooth/hci_core.c: hci_notifier
    net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_core.c: ip_conntrack_chain
    net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_core.c: ip_conntrack_expect_chain
    net/ipv6/addrconf.c: inet6addr_chain
    net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_core.c: nf_conntrack_chain
    net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_core.c: nf_conntrack_expect_chain
    net/netlink/af_netlink.c: netlink_chain

    BLOCKING CHAINS
    ---------------
    arch/powerpc/platforms/pseries/reconfig.c: pSeries_reconfig_chain
    arch/s390/kernel/process.c: idle_chain
    arch/x86_64/kernel/process.c idle_notifier
    drivers/base/memory.c: memory_chain
    drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c cpufreq_policy_notifier_list
    drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c cpufreq_transition_notifier_list
    drivers/macintosh/adb.c: adb_client_list
    drivers/macintosh/via-pmu.c sleep_notifier_list
    drivers/macintosh/via-pmu68k.c sleep_notifier_list
    drivers/macintosh/windfarm_core.c wf_client_list
    drivers/usb/core/notify.c usb_notifier_list
    drivers/video/fbmem.c fb_notifier_list
    kernel/cpu.c cpu_chain
    kernel/module.c module_notify_list
    kernel/profile.c munmap_notifier
    kernel/profile.c task_exit_notifier
    kernel/sys.c reboot_notifier_list
    net/core/dev.c netdev_chain
    net/decnet/dn_dev.c: dnaddr_chain
    net/ipv4/devinet.c: inetaddr_chain

    It's possible that some of these classifications are wrong. If they are,
    please let us know or submit a patch to fix them. Note that any chain that
    gets called very frequently should be atomic, because the rwsem read-locking
    used for blocking chains is very likely to incur cache misses on SMP systems.
    (However, if the chain's callout routines may sleep then the chain cannot be
    atomic.)

    The patch set was written by Alan Stern and Chandra Seetharaman, incorporating
    material written by Keith Owens and suggestions from Paul McKenney and Andrew
    Morton.

    [jes@sgi.com: restructure the notifier chain initialization macros]
    Signed-off-by: Alan Stern
    Signed-off-by: Chandra Seetharaman
    Signed-off-by: Jes Sorensen
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Alan Stern
     

26 Mar, 2006

3 commits

  • This patch avoids arithmetic on 'signed' types that are slower than
    'unsigned'. This saves space and cpu cycles.

    size of kernel/sys.o before the patch (gcc-3.4.5)

    text data bss dec hex filename
    10924 252 4 11180 2bac kernel/sys.o

    size of kernel/sys.o after the patch
    text data bss dec hex filename
    10903 252 4 11159 2b97 kernel/sys.o

    I noticed that gcc-4.1.0 (from Fedora Core 5) even uses idiv instruction for
    (a+b)/2 if a and b are signed.

    Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Eric Dumazet
     
  • While doing some benchmarks of an Apache/PHP SMP server, I noticed high
    oprofile numbers in in_group_p() and _atomic_dec_and_lock().

    rank percent
    1 4.8911 % __link_path_walk
    2 4.8503 % __d_lookup
    *3 4.2911 % _atomic_dec_and_lock
    4 3.9307 % __copy_to_user_ll
    5 4.9004 % sysenter_past_esp
    *6 3.3248 % in_group_p

    It appears that in_group_p() does an uncessary

    get_group_info(current->group_info); /* atomic_inc() */
    ... /* access current->group_info */
    put_group_info(current->group_info); /* _atomic_dec_and_lock */

    It is not necessary to do this, because the current task holds a reference
    on its own group_info, and this reference cannot change during the lookup.

    This patch deletes the get_group_info()/put_group_info() pair from
    sys_getgroups(), in_group_p() and in_egroup_p() functions.

    Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet
    Cc: Tim Hockin
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Eric Dumazet
     
  • Move capable() to kernel/capability.c and eliminate duplicate
    implementations. Add __capable() function which can be used to check for
    capabiilty of any process.

    Signed-off-by: Chris Wright
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Chris Wright
     

24 Mar, 2006

3 commits

  • Document the fact that setrlimit(RLIMIT_CPU) doesn't return error codes when
    it should. I don't think we can fix this without a 2.7.x..

    Cc: Martin Schwidefsky
    Cc: Ulrich Weigand
    Cc: Cliff Wickman
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Andrew Morton
     
  • At present the kernel doesn't honour an attempt to set RLIMIT_CPU to zero
    seconds. But the spec says it should, and that's what 2.4.x does.

    Fixing this for real would involve some complexity (such as adding a new
    it-has-been-set flag to the task_struct, and testing that everwhere, instead
    of overloading the value of it_prof_expires).

    Given that a 2.4 kernel won't actually send the signal until one second has
    expired anyway, let's just handle this case by treating the caller's
    zero-seconds as one second.

    Cc: Martin Schwidefsky
    Cc: Ulrich Weigand
    Cc: Cliff Wickman
    Acked-by: Ingo Molnar
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Andrew Morton
     
  • - Whitespace cleanups

    - Make that expression comprehensible.

    There's a potential logic change here: we do the "is it_prof_expires equal to
    zero" test after converting it to seconds, rather than doing the comparison
    between raw cputime_t's.

    But given that it's in units of seconds anyway, that shouldn't change
    anything.

    Cc: Martin Schwidefsky
    Cc: Ulrich Weigand
    Cc: Cliff Wickman
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Andrew Morton
     

23 Mar, 2006

2 commits

  • Semaphore to mutex conversion.

    The conversion was generated via scripts, and the result was validated
    automatically via a script as well.

    Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar
    Cc: Alan Cox
    Cc: Russell King
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Ingo Molnar
     
  • Avoid taking the global tasklist_lock when possible, if a process is single
    threaded during getrusage(). Any avoidance of tasklist_lock is good for
    NUMA boxes (and possibly for large SMPs). Thanks to Oleg Nesterov for
    review and suggestions.

    Signed-off-by: Nippun Goel
    Signed-off-by: Ravikiran Thirumalai
    Signed-off-by: Shai Fultheim
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Ravikiran G Thirumalai
     

08 Feb, 2006

1 commit


25 Jan, 2006

1 commit


12 Jan, 2006

2 commits

  • - Move capable() from sched.h to capability.h;

    - Use where capable() is used
    (in include/, block/, ipc/, kernel/, a few drivers/,
    mm/, security/, & sound/;
    many more drivers/ to go)

    Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Randy.Dunlap
     
  • Uninline capable(). Saves 2K of kernel text on a generic .config, and 1K on a
    tiny config. In addition it makes the use of capable more consistent between
    CONFIG_SECURITY and !CONFIG_SECURITY

    Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Ingo Molnar
     

09 Jan, 2006

5 commits

  • Factor out common code for different RUSAGE_xxx cases.

    Don't take ->sighand->siglock in RUSAGE_SELF case, suggested by Ravikiran G
    Thirumalai .

    Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Oleg Nesterov
     
  • sys_setpgid() allows to change ->pgrp of ptraced childs.

    'man setpgid' does not tell anything about that, so I consider
    this behaviour is a bug.

    Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov
    Cc: Oren Laadan
    Cc: Roland McGrath
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Oleg Nesterov
     
  • setsid() does not work unless the calling process is a
    thread_group_leader().

    'man setpgid' does not tell anything about that, so I consider this
    behaviour is a bug.

    Signed-off-by: Oren Laadan
    Cc: Oleg Nesterov
    Cc: Roland McGrath
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Oren Laadan
     
  • setpgid(0, pgid) or setpgid(forked_child_pid, pgid) does not work unless
    the calling process is a thread_group_leader().

    'man setpgid' does not tell anything about that, so I consider this
    behaviour is a bug.

    Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov
    Cc: Oren Laadan
    Cc: Roland McGrath
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Oleg Nesterov
     
  • The problem. It is expected that /sbin/halt -p works exactly like
    /sbin/halt, when the kernel does not implement power off functionality.

    The kernel can do a lot of work in the reboot notifiers and in
    device_shutdown before we even get to machine_power_off. Some of that
    shutdown is not safe if you are leaving the power on, and it definitely
    gets in the way of using sysrq or pressing ctrl-alt-del. Since the
    shutdown happens in generic code there is no way to fix this in
    architecture specific code :(

    Some machines are kernel oopsing today because of this.

    The simple solution is to turn LINUX_REBOOT_CMD_POWER_OFF into
    LINUX_REBOOT_CMD_HALT if power_off functionality is not implemented.

    This has the unfortunate side effect of disabling the power off
    functionality on architectures that leave pm_power_off to null and still
    implement something in machine_power_off. And it will break the build on
    some architectures that don't have a pm_power_off variable at all.

    On both counts I say tough.

    For architectures like alpha that don't implement the pm_power_off variable
    pm_power_off is declared in linux/pm.h and it is a generic part of our
    power management code, and all architectures should implement it.

    For architectures like parisc that have a default power off method in
    machine_power_off if pm_power_off is not implemented or fails. It is easy
    enough to set the pm_power_off variable. And nothing bad happens there,
    the machines just stop powering off.

    The current semantics are impossible without a flag at the top level so we
    can avoid the problem code if a power off is not implemented. pm_power_off
    is as good a flag as any with the bonus that it works without modification
    on at least x86, x86_64, powerpc, and ppc today.

    Andrew can you pick this up and put this in the mm tree. Kernels that
    don't compile or don't power off seem saner than kernels that oops or
    panic. Until we get the arch specific patches for the problem
    architectures this probably isn't smart to push into the stable kernel.
    Unfortunately I don't have the time at the moment to walk through every
    architecture and make them work. And even if I did I couldn't test it :(

    From: Hirokazu Takata

    Add pm_power_off() for build fix of arch/m32r/kernel/process.c.

    From: Miklos Szeredi

    UML build fix

    Signed-off-by: Eric W. Biederman
    Signed-off-by: Hayato Fujiwara
    Signed-off-by: Hirokazu Takata
    Signed-off-by: Miklos Szeredi
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Eric W. Biederman
     

16 Dec, 2005

1 commit


13 Dec, 2005

1 commit

  • For Kprobes critical path is the path from debug break exception handler
    till the control reaches kprobes exception code. No probes can be
    supported in this path as we will end up in recursion.

    This patch prevents this by moving the below function to safe __kprobes
    section onto which no probes can be inserted.

    Signed-off-by: Anil S Keshavamurthy
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Keshavamurthy Anil S
     

11 Nov, 2005

1 commit


07 Nov, 2005

1 commit