linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] make checkpatch warn about access to current->comm

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <Aufg85sZjFB@christoph>
Date:	27 Jan 2009 19:15:00 +0100
From:	lirc@...telmus.de (Christoph Bartelmus)
To:	torvalds@...ux-foundation.org
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] make checkpatch warn about access to current->comm

On 27 Jan 09 at 07:45, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2009, Kyle McMartin wrote:
>>
>> Suggest using the get_task_comm accessor versus direct access to
>> current->comm.

> I think "current->comm" is fine, and not racy.
>
> It only gets racy when you ask for the name of _another_ task.
>
> And quite frankly, I don't think anybody but /proc does that anyway. I
> think this whole "get_task_comm()" thing is overrated. Most people are
> better off doing just "current->comm".

This issue only came up because for someone like me it's not obvious at  
all that using "current->comm" is safe and the comment in sched.h  
explicitly points out that task_struct.comm should be accessed with  
[gs]et_task_comm.

Christoph
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/