linux-kernel - Re: [RFC v2] ptrace, pidfd: add pidfd

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Date:   Tue, 28 Apr 2020 10:45:46 +1000
From:   Aleksa Sarai <cyphar@...har.com>
To:     Christian Brauner <christian.brauner@...ntu.com>
Cc:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Hagen Paul Pfeifer <hagen@...u.net>,
        "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
        Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
        kernel list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Florian Weimer <fweimer@...hat.com>,
        Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Christian Brauner <christian@...uner.io>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Brian Gerst <brgerst@...il.com>,
        Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@...gle.com>,
        David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>,
        Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...hat.com>,
        Sargun Dhillon <sargun@...gun.me>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-arch <linux-arch@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC v2] ptrace, pidfd: add pidfd_ptrace syscall

On 2020-04-27, Christian Brauner <christian.brauner@...ntu.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 10:08:03PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > The way I understood Jann was that instead of a new syscall that duplicates
> > everything in ptrace(), there would only need to be a new ptrace request
> > such as PTRACE_ATTACH_PIDFD that behaves like PTRACE_ATTACH
> > but takes a pidfd as the second argument, perhaps setting the return value
> > to the pid on success. Same for PTRACE_SEIZE.
> 
> That was my initial suggestion, yes. Any enum that identifies a target
> by a pid will get a new _PIDFD version and the pidfd is passed as pid_t
> argument. That should work and is similar to what I did for waitid()
> P_PIDFD. Realistically, there shouldn't be any system where pid_t is
> smaller than an int that we care about.
> 
> > In effect this is not much different from your a), just a variation on the
> > calling conventions. The main upside is that it avoids adding another
> > ugly interface, the flip side is that it makes the existing one slightly worse
> > by adding complexity.
> 
> Basically, if a new syscall than please a proper re-design with real
> benefits.
> 
> In the meantime we could make due with the _PIDFD variant. And then if
> someone wants to do the nitty gritty work of adding a ptrace variant
> purely based on pidfds and with a better api and features that e.g. Jann
> pointed out then by all means, please do so. I'm sure we would all
> welcome this as well.

I agree. It would be a shame to add a new ptrace syscall and not take
the opportunity to fix the multitude of problems with the existing API.
But that's a Pandora's box which we shouldn't open unless we want to
wait a long time to get an API everyone is okay with -- a pretty high
price to just get pidfds support in ptrace.

-- 
Aleksa Sarai
Senior Software Engineer (Containers)
SUSE Linux GmbH
<https://www.cyphar.com/>

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