linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v3 00/13] Virtually mapped stacks with guard pages (x86, core)

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Date:	Thu, 23 Jun 2016 16:31:26 +0200
From:	Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
	the arch/x86 maintainers <x86@...nel.org>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-arch@...r.kernel.org" <linux-arch@...r.kernel.org>,
	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
	Nadav Amit <nadav.amit@...il.com>,
	Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
	Brian Gerst <brgerst@...il.com>,
	"kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com" 
	<kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>,
	Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...hat.com>,
	Jann Horn <jann@...jh.net>,
	Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@...ibm.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 00/13] Virtually mapped stacks with guard pages (x86,
 core)

On 06/22, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> Oleg, what do you think? Would it be reasonable to free the stack and
> thread_info synchronously at exit time, clear the pointer (to catch
> any odd use), and only RCU-delay the task_struct itself?

I didn't see the patches yet, quite possibly I misunderstood... But no,
I don't this we can do this (if we are not going to move ti->flags to
task_struct at least).

> (Obviously, we can't release it in do_exit() itself like we do some of
> the other state - it would need to be released after we've scheduled
> away to another process' stack, but we already have that TASK_DEAD
> handling in finish_task_switch for this exact reason).

Yes, but the problem is that a zombie thread can do its last schedule
before it is reaped.

Just for example, syscall_regfunc() does

		read_lock(&tasklist_lock);
		for_each_process_thread(p, t) {
			set_tsk_thread_flag(t, TIF_SYSCALL_TRACEPOINT);
		}
		read_unlock(&tasklist_lock);

and this can easily hit a TASK_DEAD thread with ->stack == NULL.

And we can't free/nullify it when the parent/debuger reaps a zombie,
say, mark_oom_victim() expects that get_task_struct() protects
thread_info as well.

Oleg.