Message-ID: <20240930.141721-salted.birth.growing.forges-5Z29YNO700C@cyphar.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2024 16:21:23 +0200
From: Aleksa Sarai <cyphar@...har.com>
To: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>
Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>, 
	Florian Weimer <fweimer@...hat.com>, Christian Brauner <christian@...uner.io>, 
	Shuah Khan <shuah@...nel.org>, "Liam R . Howlett" <Liam.Howlett@...cle.com>, 
	Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@...gle.com>, Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>, pedro.falcato@...il.com, 
	linux-kselftest@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, 
	linux-api@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] introduce PIDFD_SELF

On 2024-09-30, Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 30, 2024 at 02:34:33PM GMT, Christian Brauner wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 30, 2024 at 11:39:49AM GMT, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> > > On Mon, Sep 30, 2024 at 12:33:18PM GMT, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > > > * Lorenzo Stoakes:
> > > >
> > > > > If you wish to utilise a pidfd interface to refer to the current process
> > > > > (from the point of view of userland - from the kernel point of view - the
> > > > > thread group leader), it is rather cumbersome, requiring something like:
> > > > >
> > > > > 	int pidfd = pidfd_open(getpid(), 0);
> > > > >
> > > > > 	...
> > > > >
> > > > > 	close(pidfd);
> > > > >
> > > > > Or the equivalent call opening /proc/self. It is more convenient to use a
> > > > > sentinel value to indicate to an interface that accepts a pidfd that we
> > > > > simply wish to refer to the current process.
> > > >
> > > > The descriptor will refer to the current thread, not process, right?
> > >
> > > No it refers to the current process (i.e. thread group leader from kernel
> > > perspective). Unless you specify PIDFD_THREAD, this is the same if you did the above.
> > >
> > > >
> > > > The distinction matters for pidfd_getfd if a process contains multiple
> > > > threads with different file descriptor tables, and probably for
> > > > pidfd_send_signal as well.
> > >
> > > You mean if you did a strange set of flags to clone()? Otherwise these are
> > > shared right?
> > >
> > > Again, we are explicitly looking at process not thread from userland
> > > perspective. A PIDFD_SELF_THREAD might be possible, but this series doesn't try
> > > to implement that.
> >
> > Florian raises a good point. Currently we have:
> >
> > (1) int pidfd_tgid = pidfd_open(getpid(), 0);
> > (2) int pidfd_thread = pidfd_open(getpid(), PIDFD_THREAD);
> >
> > and this instructs:
> >
> > pidfd_send_signal()
> > pidfd_getfd()
> >
> > to do different things. For pidfd_send_signal() it's whether the
> > operation has thread-group scope or thread-scope for pidfd_send_signal()
> > and for pidfd_getfd() it determines the fdtable to use.
> >
> > The thing is that if you pass:
> >
> > pidfd_getfd(PDIFD_SELF)
> >
> > and you have:
> >
> > TGID
> >
> > T1 {
> >     clone(CLONE_THREAD)
> >     unshare(CLONE_FILES)
> > }
> >
> > T2 {
> >     clone(CLONE_THREAD)
> >     unshare(CLONE_FILES)
> > }
> >
> > You have 3 threads in the same thread-group that all have distinct file
> > descriptor tables from each other.
> >
> > So if T1 did:
> >
> > pidfd_getfd(PIDFD_SELF, ...)
> >
> > and we mirror the PIDTYPE_TGID behavior then T1 will very likely expect
> > to get the fd from its file descriptor table. IOW, its reasonable to
> > expect that T1 is interested in their very own resource, not someone
> > else's even if it is the thread-group leader.
> >
> > But what T1 will get in reality is an fd from TGID's file descriptor
> > table (and similar for T2).
> >
> > Iirc, yes that confusion exists already with /proc/self. But the
> > question is whether we should add the same confusion to the pidfd api or
> > whether we make PIDFD_SELF actually mean PIDTYPE_PID aka the actual
> > calling thread.
> >
> > My thinking is that if you have the reasonable suspicion that you're
> > multi-threaded and that you're interested in the thread-group resource
> > then you should be using:
> >
> > int pidfd = pidfd_open(getpid(), 0)
> >
> > and hand that thread-group leader pidfd around since you're interested
> > in another thread. But if you're really just interested in your own
> > resource then pidfd_open(getpid(), 0) makes no sense and you would want
> > PIDFD_SELF.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> 
> I mean from my perspective, my aim is to get current->mm for
> process_madvise() so both work for me :) however you both raise a very good
> point here (sorry Florian, perhaps I was a little too dismissive as to your
> point, you're absolutely right).
> 
> My intent was for PIDFD_SELF to simply mirror the pidfd_open(getpid(), 0)
> behaviour, but you and Florian make a strong case that you'd _probably_
> find this very confusing had you unshared in this fashion.
> 
> I mean in general this confusion already exists, and is for what
> PIDFD_THREAD was created, but I suspect ideally if you could go back you
> might actually do this by default Christian + let the TGL behaviour be the
> optional thing?
> 
> For most users this will not be an issue, but for those they'd get the same
> result whichever they used, but yes actually I think you're both right -
> PIDFD_SELF should in effect imply PIDFD_THREAD.

Funnily enough we ran into issues with this when running Go code in runc
that did precisely this -- /proc/self gave you the wrong fd table in
very specific circumstances that were annoying to debug. For languages
with green-threading you can't turn off (like Go) these kinds of issues
pop up surprisingly often.

> We can adjust the pidfd_send_signal() call to infer the correct scope
> (actually nicely we can do that without any change there, by having
> __pidfd_get_pid() set f_flags accordingly).
> 
> So TL;DR: I agree, I will respin with PIDFD_SELF referring to the thread.
> 
> My question in return here then is - should we introduce PIDFD_SELF_PROCESS
> also (do advise if you feel this naming isn't quite right) - to provide
> thread group leader behaviour?

Sorry to bike-shed, but to match /proc/self and /proc/thread-self, maybe
they should be called PIDFD_SELF (for tgid) and PIDFD_THREAD_SELF (for
current's tid)? In principle I guess users might use PIDFD_SELF by
accident but if we mirror the naming with /proc/{,thread-}self that
might not be that big of an issue?

Just a thought.

> 
> Thanks!
> 

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

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