linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 01/13] devpts: Teach /dev/ptmx to find the associated devpts via path lookup

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Date:	Sat, 09 Apr 2016 15:37:55 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	ebiederm@...ssion.com
CC:	One Thousand Gnomes <gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Peter Hurley <peter@...leysoftware.com>,
	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>, Jiri Slaby <jslaby@...e.com>,
	Aurelien Jarno <aurelien@...el32.net>,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Florian Weimer <fw@...eb.enyo.de>,
	Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
	Serge Hallyn <serge.hallyn@...ntu.com>,
	Jann Horn <jann@...jh.net>,
	"security@...nel.org" <security@...nel.org>,
	"security@...ntu.com >> security" <security@...ntu.com>,
	security@...ian.org, Willy Tarreau <w@....eu>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 01/13] devpts: Teach /dev/ptmx to find the associated devpts via path lookup

On April 9, 2016 7:45:46 AM PDT, ebiederm@...ssion.com wrote:
>"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com> writes:
>
>> On April 9, 2016 6:09:09 AM PDT, One Thousand Gnomes
><gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> If anyone has a better idea on how userspace should connect the
>>>master
>>>> pty file descriptor the slave file descriptor, I would be willing
>to
>>>> implement that instead.
>>>
>>>If we are willing to go away from the existing mess of a tty
>interface
>>>inflicted on us by BSD and then mashed up by POSIX then a syscall of
>>>
>>>  int err = ptypair(int fd[2], int perms, int flags);
>>>
>>>[where flags is the O_ ones we usually need to cover (CLOEXEC etc)
>and
>>>maybe even some kind of "private" flag to say don't even expose it
>via
>>>devpts).
>>>
>>>would do remarkably sane things to the majoirty of use cases as it
>>>breaks
>>>the dependence on grantpt and also the historic screwup that pty
>pairs
>>>aren't allocated atomically with both file handles returned as pipe()
>>>does.
>>>
>>>Alan
>>
>> We don't even need to do that if we'd be willing to change the user
>> space interface... if we could rely on the POSIX interface then
>> posix_openpt() could simply open /dev/pts/ptmx and everything would
>> just work.
>
>At a quick skim it does look like userspace uses posix_openpt for the
>most part.  Certainly portable apps that can run on FreeBSD do.
>And just grepping through binaries all of the ones I have checked so
>far
>are calling posix_openpt.
>
>Peter if you or someone could start updating the userspace version of
>posix_openpt to use /dev/pts/ptmx when available over /dev/ptmx in
>parallel to the kernel work to always allow mount of devpts to give
>distinct instances that would be great.
>
>> The trick here is how to make it work in the presence of some
>> extremely bad practices in existing userspace.
>
>Yeah.  I am going to look and see if I can move this controversial bit
>to a separate patch so we can discuss it more conviniently.
>
>Eric

On the flipside, if we were to allow ourselves to break userspace, at this point I would suggest making /dev/pts/ptmx have a different device number and make the legacy /dev/ptmx print a warning message, after which it can at least eventually be deleted.

This might not be a bad idea anyway.
-- 
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