[PATCH] scheduler: introduce SCHED_RESET_ON_FORK scheduling policyflag

From: Lennart Poettering
Date: Mon Jun 15 2009 - 11:18:28 EST


(This is the third version of the patch, only change is to move the
reset_on_fork flag into a bit hole in the task struct and a rebase on
current master, Peter or Ingo, may I ask you to merge that into your
trees?)

This patch introduces a new flag SCHED_RESET_ON_FORK which can be passed
to the kernel via sched_setscheduler(), ORed in the policy parameter. If
set this will make sure that when the process forks a) the scheduling
priority is reset to DEFAULT_PRIO if it was higher and b) the scheduling
policy is reset to SCHED_NORMAL if it was either SCHED_FIFO or SCHED_RR.

Why have this?

Currently, if a process is real-time scheduled this will 'leak' to all
its child processes. For security reasons it is often (always?) a good
idea to make sure that if a process acquires RT scheduling this is
confined to this process and only this process. More specifically this
makes the per-process resource limit RLIMIT_RTTIME useful for security
purposes, because it makes it impossible to use a fork bomb to
circumvent the per-process RLIMIT_RTTIME accounting.

This feature is also useful for tools like 'renice' which can then
change the nice level of a process without having this spill to all its
child processes.

Why expose this via sched_setscheduler() and not other syscalls such as
prctl() or sched_setparam()?

prctl() does not take a pid parameter. Due to that it would be
impossible to modify this flag for other processes than the current one.

The struct passed to sched_setparam() can unfortunately not be extended
without breaking compatibility, since sched_setparam() lacks a size
parameter.

How to use this from userspace? In your RT program simply replace this:

sched_setscheduler(pid, SCHED_FIFO, &param);

by this:

sched_setscheduler(pid, SCHED_FIFO|SCHED_RESET_ON_FORK, &param);

Lennart
---
include/linux/sched.h | 6 ++++++
kernel/sched.c | 47 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------
2 files changed, 44 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
index 83f3564..bd503ce 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched.h
@@ -38,6 +38,8 @@
#define SCHED_BATCH 3
/* SCHED_ISO: reserved but not implemented yet */
#define SCHED_IDLE 5
+/* Can be ORed in to make sure the process is reverted back to SCHED_NORMAL on fork */
+#define SCHED_RESET_ON_FORK 0x40000000

#ifdef __KERNEL__

@@ -1209,6 +1211,10 @@ struct task_struct {
unsigned did_exec:1;
unsigned in_execve:1; /* Tell the LSMs that the process is doing an
* execve */
+
+ /* Revert to default priority/policy when forking */
+ unsigned sched_reset_on_fork:1;
+
pid_t pid;
pid_t tgid;

diff --git a/kernel/sched.c b/kernel/sched.c
index 8ec9d13..1db3e4a 100644
--- a/kernel/sched.c
+++ b/kernel/sched.c
@@ -2613,12 +2613,26 @@ void sched_fork(struct task_struct *p, int clone_flags)
set_task_cpu(p, cpu);

/*
- * Make sure we do not leak PI boosting priority to the child:
+ * Revert to default priority/policy on fork if requested. Make sure we
+ * do not leak PI boosting priority to the child.
*/
- p->prio = current->normal_prio;
+ if (current->sched_reset_on_fork &&
+ (p->policy == SCHED_FIFO || p->policy == SCHED_RR))
+ p->policy = SCHED_NORMAL;
+
+ if (current->sched_reset_on_fork &&
+ (current->normal_prio < DEFAULT_PRIO))
+ p->prio = DEFAULT_PRIO;
+ else
+ p->prio = current->normal_prio;
+
if (!rt_prio(p->prio))
p->sched_class = &fair_sched_class;

+ /* We don't need the reset flag anymore after the fork. It has
+ * fulfilled its duty. */
+ p->sched_reset_on_fork = 0;
+
#if defined(CONFIG_SCHEDSTATS) || defined(CONFIG_TASK_DELAY_ACCT)
if (likely(sched_info_on()))
memset(&p->sched_info, 0, sizeof(p->sched_info));
@@ -6094,17 +6108,25 @@ static int __sched_setscheduler(struct task_struct *p, int policy,
unsigned long flags;
const struct sched_class *prev_class = p->sched_class;
struct rq *rq;
+ int reset_on_fork;

/* may grab non-irq protected spin_locks */
BUG_ON(in_interrupt());
recheck:
/* double check policy once rq lock held */
- if (policy < 0)
+ if (policy < 0) {
+ reset_on_fork = p->sched_reset_on_fork;
policy = oldpolicy = p->policy;
- else if (policy != SCHED_FIFO && policy != SCHED_RR &&
- policy != SCHED_NORMAL && policy != SCHED_BATCH &&
- policy != SCHED_IDLE)
- return -EINVAL;
+ } else {
+ reset_on_fork = !!(policy & SCHED_RESET_ON_FORK);
+ policy &= ~SCHED_RESET_ON_FORK;
+
+ if (policy != SCHED_FIFO && policy != SCHED_RR &&
+ policy != SCHED_NORMAL && policy != SCHED_BATCH &&
+ policy != SCHED_IDLE)
+ return -EINVAL;
+ }
+
/*
* Valid priorities for SCHED_FIFO and SCHED_RR are
* 1..MAX_USER_RT_PRIO-1, valid priority for SCHED_NORMAL,
@@ -6148,6 +6170,10 @@ recheck:
/* can't change other user's priorities */
if (!check_same_owner(p))
return -EPERM;
+
+ /* normal users shall not reset the sched_reset_on_fork flag */
+ if (p->sched_reset_on_fork && !reset_on_fork)
+ return -EPERM;
}

if (user) {
@@ -6191,6 +6217,8 @@ recheck:
if (running)
p->sched_class->put_prev_task(rq, p);

+ p->sched_reset_on_fork = reset_on_fork;
+
oldprio = p->prio;
__setscheduler(rq, p, policy, param->sched_priority);

@@ -6307,14 +6335,15 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE1(sched_getscheduler, pid_t, pid)
if (p) {
retval = security_task_getscheduler(p);
if (!retval)
- retval = p->policy;
+ retval = p->policy
+ | (p->sched_reset_on_fork ? SCHED_RESET_ON_FORK : 0);
}
read_unlock(&tasklist_lock);
return retval;
}

/**
- * sys_sched_getscheduler - get the RT priority of a thread
+ * sys_sched_getparam - get the RT priority of a thread
* @pid: the pid in question.
* @param: structure containing the RT priority.
*/
--
1.6.2.2



Lennart

--
Lennart Poettering Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net
http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4
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