netdev - Re: [PATCH v2] Implement close-on-fork

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Date:   Fri, 15 May 2020 09:26:18 -0700
From:   Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>
To:     "Karstens, Nate" <Nate.Karstens@...min.com>
Cc:     Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Jeff Layton <jlayton@...nel.org>,
        "J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@...ldses.org>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Richard Henderson <rth@...ddle.net>,
        Ivan Kokshaysky <ink@...assic.park.msu.ru>,
        Matt Turner <mattst88@...il.com>,
        "James E.J. Bottomley" <James.Bottomley@...senpartnership.com>,
        Helge Deller <deller@....de>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>,
        Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>,
        David Laight <David.Laight@...lab.com>,
        "linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
        "linux-arch@...r.kernel.org" <linux-arch@...r.kernel.org>,
        "linux-alpha@...r.kernel.org" <linux-alpha@...r.kernel.org>,
        "linux-parisc@...r.kernel.org" <linux-parisc@...r.kernel.org>,
        "sparclinux@...r.kernel.org" <sparclinux@...r.kernel.org>,
        "netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Changli Gao <xiaosuo@...il.com>,
        "a.josey@...ngroup.org" <a.josey@...ngroup.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] Implement close-on-fork

On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 04:07:33PM +0000, Karstens, Nate wrote:
> Matthew,
> 
> What alternative would you suggest?
> 
> >From an earlier email:
> 
> > ...nothing else addresses the underlying issue: there is no way to
> > prevent a fork() from duplicating the resource. The close-on-exec
> > flag partially-addresses this by allowing the parent process to
> > mark a file descriptor as exclusive to itself, but there is still
> > a period of time the failure can occur because the auto-close only
> > occurs during the exec(). Perhaps this would not be an issue with
> > a different process/threading model, but that is another discussion
> > entirely.
> 
> Do you disagree there is an issue?

Yes.  system() is defined as being unsafe for a threaded application
to call.  I pointed this out in the last thread.