linux-kernel - [PATCH v2] cap_syslog: don't use WARN_ONCE for CAP_SYS

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Date:	Mon, 8 Aug 2011 06:22:43 +0200
From:	Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@...il.com>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	"Serge E. Hallyn" <serge@...lyn.com>,
	Gergely Nagy <algernon@...abit.hu>, david@...g.hm,
	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Marc Koschewski <marc@...nowledge.org>,
	lkml <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>,
	Nick Bowler <nbowler@...iptictech.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2] cap_syslog: don't use WARN_ONCE for CAP_SYS_ADMIN
 deprecation warning

syslog-ng versions before 3.3.0beta1 (2011-05-12) assume that
CAP_SYS_ADMIN is sufficient to access syslog, so ever since CAP_SYSLOG
was introduced (2010-11-25) they have triggered a warning.
v2.6.38-rc5~46 (cap_syslog: accept CAP_SYS_ADMIN for now, 2011-02-10)
improved matters a little by making syslog-ng work again, just keeping
the WARN_ONCE().  But still, this is a warning that writes a stack
trace we don't care about to syslog, sets a taint flag, and alarms
sysadmins when nothing worse has happened than use of an old userspace
with a recent kernel.

Convert the WARN_ONCE to a printk_once to avoid that while continuing
to give userspace developers a hint that this is an unwanted
backward-compatibility feature and won't be around forever.

Reported-by: Ralf Hildebrandt <ralf.hildebrandt@...rite.de>
Reported-by: Niels <zorglub_olsen@...mail.com>
Reported-by: Paweł Sikora <pluto@...k.net>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@...il.com>
Liked-by: Gergely Nagy <algernon@...house-project.org>
Acked-by: Serge Hallyn <serge@...lyn.com>
Acked-by: James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>
---
Linus Torvalds wrote:

> The problem with this one is that converting away from a warning
> doesn't just get rid of all the ugliness, it gets rid of some of the
> *useful* information in the warning too.
>
> In particular, when you have a warning like "Attempting to access
> syslog", you'd better tell people *who* is attempting to access
> syslog, so that they can fix it or complain to the right person.

True.  I can't imagine people wanting to know much more than the
process's command line and pid, which is basically what the WARN_ONCE
gives (though it also gives registers).  Here's an updated patch.

I've carried over the acks from last time; hopefully that's okay.
Thanks for your help.

 kernel/printk.c |    6 ++++--
 1 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/printk.c b/kernel/printk.c
index 37dff342..836a2ae0 100644
--- a/kernel/printk.c
+++ b/kernel/printk.c
@@ -318,8 +318,10 @@ static int check_syslog_permissions(int type, bool from_file)
 			return 0;
 		/* For historical reasons, accept CAP_SYS_ADMIN too, with a warning */
 		if (capable(CAP_SYS_ADMIN)) {
-			WARN_ONCE(1, "Attempt to access syslog with CAP_SYS_ADMIN "
-				 "but no CAP_SYSLOG (deprecated).\n");
+			printk_once(KERN_WARNING "%s (%d): "
+				 "Attempt to access syslog with CAP_SYS_ADMIN "
+				 "but no CAP_SYSLOG (deprecated).\n",
+				 current->comm, task_pid_nr(current));
 			return 0;
 		}
 		return -EPERM;
-- 
1.7.6

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