Re: [PATCH 0/2] mm: introduce MAP_FIXED_SAFE

From: Rasmus Villemoes
Date: Wed Dec 06 2017 - 02:33:50 EST


On 2017-12-06 05:50, Michael Ellerman wrote:
> Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>> On Wed 29-11-17 14:25:36, Kees Cook wrote:
>> It is safe in a sense it doesn't perform any address space dangerous
>> operations. mmap is _inherently_ about the address space so the context
>> should be kind of clear.
>
> So now you have to define what "dangerous" means.
>
>>> MAP_FIXED_UNIQUE
>>> MAP_FIXED_ONCE
>>> MAP_FIXED_FRESH
>>
>> Well, I can open a poll for the best name, but none of those you are
>> proposing sound much better to me. Yeah, naming sucks...

I also don't like the _SAFE name - MAP_FIXED in itself isn't unsafe [1],
but I do agree that having a way to avoid clobbering (parts of) an
existing mapping is quite useful. Since we're bikeshedding names, how
about MAP_FIXED_EXCL, in analogy with the O_ flag.

[1] I like the analogy between MAP_FIXED and dup2 made in
<stackoverflow.com/questions/28575893>.

Rasmus