Re: [PATCH 0/4] ipc/shm.c: increase the limits for SHMMAX, SHMALL

[Davidlohr Bueso]

On Tue, 2014-04-22 at 06:23 +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> On 04/21/2014 07:25 PM, Davidlohr Bueso wrote:
> > On Mon, 2014-04-21 at 16:26 +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> the increase of SHMMAX/SHMALL is now a 4 patch series.
> >> I don't have ideas how to improve it further.
> > Manfred, is there any difference between this set and the one you sent a
> > couple of days ago?
> a) I updated the comments.
> b) the initial set used TASK_SIZE, not I switch to ULONG_MAX-(1L<<24)
> 
> >>    - Using "0" as a magic value for infinity is even worse, because
> >>      right now 0 means 0, i.e. fail all allocations.
> > Sorry but I don't quite get this. Using 0 eliminates the need for all
> > these patches, no? I mean overflows have existed since forever, and
> > taking this route would naturally solve the problem. 0 allocations are a
> > no no anyways.
> No. The patches are required to handle e.g. shmget(,ULONG_MAX,):
> Right now, shmget(,ULONG_MAX,) results in a 0-byte segment.

Ok, I was mixing 'issues' then.

> The risk of using 0 is that it reverses the current behavior:
> Up to now,
>      # sysctl kernel.shmall=0
> disables allocations.
> If we define 0 a infinity, then the same configuration would allow 
> unlimited allocations.

Right, but as I mentioned, this also contradicts the fact that shmmin
cannot be 0. And again, I don't know who's correct here. Do any
standards mention this? I haven't found anything, and hard-codding
shmmin to 1 seems to be different among OSs, Linux choosing to do so.
This difference must also be commented in the manpage.

That said, I believe that violating this "feature" and forbidding
disabling shm would probably have a more severe penalty (security,
perhaps) for users who rely on this. So while I'm really annoyed that we
"cannot" use 0 because of this, I'm going to give up arguing. I believe
you approach is the safer way of going.

Thanks a lot for looking into this, Manfred.
Davidlohr

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