linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] fs: Make write(2) interruptible by a fatal signal

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

Date:	Thu, 1 Dec 2011 20:24:25 +0800
From:	Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@...el.com>
To:	Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
Cc:	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>, Matthew Wilcox <matthew@....cx>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] fs: Make write(2) interruptible by a fatal signal

Hi,

How are we going to do with this patch?

> This patch makes write interruptible by SIGKILL.

Let me try to summarize the objective impacts of (not) merging this
patch, and would like to hear more opinions from experienced users.

- w/o patch

BEHAVIOR:
write(2) insists to complete even when the user really wants to stop it.

IMPACT:
It could be annoying to experience slow responses to "kill -9" when
it's a large write to a slow device, for example,

        dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/nokia/zero bs=100M

- w/ patch

BEHAVIOR:
write(2) aborts quickly with possible partial write on SIGKILL

IMPACT:
The partial write might lead to data corruption somewhere, sometime
(the possibility is low but real) and bring trouble to some users.

Thanks,
Fengguang
--
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/