linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 00/10] Containers(V10): Generic Process Containers

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Message-ID: <20070607000559.GA19529@sergelap.austin.ibm.com>
Date:	Wed, 6 Jun 2007 19:05:59 -0500
From:	"Serge E. Hallyn" <serue@...ibm.com>
To:	Paul Jackson <pj@....com>
Cc:	"Serge E. Hallyn" <serue@...ibm.com>, menage@...gle.com,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, dev@...ru, xemul@...ru,
	vatsa@...ibm.com, ebiederm@...ssion.com, haveblue@...ibm.com,
	svaidy@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, balbir@...ibm.com, cpw@....com,
	ckrm-tech@...ts.sourceforge.net, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	containers@...ts.osdl.org, mbligh@...gle.com, rohitseth@...gle.com,
	devel@...nvz.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/10] Containers(V10): Generic Process Containers

Quoting Paul Jackson (pj@....com):
> > > I wasn't paying close enough attention to understand why you couldn't
> > > do it in two steps - make the container, and then populate it with
> > > resources.
> > 
> > Sorry, please clarify - are you saying that now you do understand, or
> > that I should explain?
> 
> Could you explain -- I still don't understand why you need this option.
> I still don't understand why you can't do it in two steps - make the
> container, then add cpu/mem separately.

Sure - the key is that the ns subsystem uses container_clone() to
automatically create a new container (on sys_unshare() or clone(2)
with certain flags) and move the current task into it.  Let's say
we have done

	mount -t container -o ns,cpuset nsproxy /containers

and we, as task 875, happen to be in the topmost container:

	/containers/

Now we fork task 999 which does an unshare(CLONE_NEWNS), or we just
clone(CLONE_NEWNS).  This will create

	/containers/node_999

and move task 999 into that container.  Except that when it tries
attach_task() it is refused by cpuset.  So the container_clone() fails,
and in turn the sys_unshare() or clone() fails.  A login making use
of the pam_namespace.so library would fail this way with the
ns and cpuset subsystems composed.

We could special case this by having
kernel/container.c:container_clone() check whether one of the subsystems
is cpusets and, if so, setting the defaults for mems and cpus, but
that is kind of ugly.  I suppose as a cleaner alternative we could 
add a container_subsys->inherit_defaults() handler, to be called at
container_clone(), and for cpusets this would set cpus and mems to
the parent values - sibling exclusive values.  If that comes to nothing,
then the attach_task() is still refused, and the unshare() or clone()
fails, but this time with good reason.

thanks,
-serge
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