Re: [PATCH 3/4] tty: Iterate only thread group leaders in __do_SAK()

From: Oleg Nesterov
Date: Tue Jan 16 2018 - 16:13:52 EST


On 01/16, Kirill Tkhai wrote:
>
> On 15.01.2018 23:51, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> >
> >> kill:
> >> - force_sig(SIGKILL, p);
> >> + send_sig(SIGKILL, p, 1);
> >
> > Agreed, I didn't actually want to use force_sig(SIGKILL), copy-and-paste error.
>
> force_sig() is still safe under tasklist_lock as release_task() unhashes a task
> from the lists and destroys sighand at the same time under it. So, it seems
> there is no a problem :)

I didn't mean it is unsafe. The problem is that force_sig() replaced send_sig()
to avoid tasklist_lock which we no longer take in send-signal paths. Another
problem is that it differs from send_sig(SIGKILL) used in other places and this
difference (ability to kill SIGNAL_UNKILLABLE tasks) was added by accident, that
was my point.

> Anyway, we could use send_sig_info(SIGKILL, SEND_SIG_FORCED, p) instead of that
> in the patch like you suggested below.

Probably, but this needs another/separate change.

> Also we skip global init on session iteration. This could be useful for debugging,
> when init is "/bin/bash" and some task started on top of bash is hunged.

We will need this only after we use SEND_SIG_FORCED, send_sig(SIGKILL) won't kill
init.

> > This looks strange, and probably unintentional. So it seems yoou should start
> > with "revert 20ac94378 [PATCH] do_SAK: Don't recursively take the tasklist_lock" ?
> > The original reason for that commit has gone a long ago.
>
> If we revert it, lock_task_sighand() will be nested with task_lock().

This is safe. lock_task_sighand() is irq-safe (just like ->siglock) and it
is actually used in irqs. Thus it is safe to use it under task_lock() which
doesn't disable irqs.

And,

> Yeah, it's not for
> a long time, next commit will change that.

Yes, there is no reason to send SIGKILL under task_lock().

> > At the same time, I do not know if we actually want to kill sub-namespace inits
> > or not. If yes, we can use SEND_SIG_FORCED (better than ugly force_sig()) but
> > skip the global init. But this will need yet another change.
>
> From https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/SAK.txt:
>
> "An operating system's Secure Attention Key is a security tool which is
> provided as protection against trojan password capturing programs. It
> is an undefeatable way of killing all programs which could be
> masquerading as login applications"
>
> It seems, since not privileged user is able to create pid_ns to start
> a "trojan password capturing program", we have to kill sub-namespace inits too.

Agreed, that is why I suggested SEND_SIG_FORCED.

However. this is the user-visible change and who knows, perhaps it is too late
to change the current behaviour. So I think we should do this after cleanups,
this way we can easily revert it later in (unlikely) case someone complains.

But, Kirill, this is up to you, I won't insist.

Oleg.