linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/3] comm: Introduce comm_lock seqlock to protect task->comm access

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Message-ID: <1305578094.2915.53.camel@work-vm>
Date:	Mon, 16 May 2011 13:34:54 -0700
From:	John Stultz <john.stultz@...aro.org>
To:	KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>
Cc:	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, "Ted Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>,
	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>,
	Dave Hansen <dave@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, linux-mm@...ck.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] comm: Introduce comm_lock seqlock to protect
 task->comm access

On Sat, 2011-05-14 at 20:12 +0900, KOSAKI Motohiro wrote:
> >> Can you please explain why we should use seqlock? That said,
> >> we didn't use seqlock for /proc items. because, plenty seqlock
> >> write may makes readers busy wait. Then, if we don't have another
> >> protection, we give the local DoS attack way to attackers.
> >
> > So you're saying that heavy write contention can cause reader
> > starvation?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> >> task->comm is used for very fundamentally. then, I doubt we can
> >> assume write is enough rare. Why can't we use normal spinlock?
> >
> > I think writes are likely to be fairly rare. Tasks can only name
> > themselves or sibling threads, so I'm not sure I see the risk here.
> 
> reader starvation may cause another task's starvation if reader have
> an another lock.

So the risk is a thread rewriting its own comm over and over could
starve some other critical task trying to read the comm.

Ok. It makes it a little more costly, but fair enough.

thanks
-john




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