Re: [PATCH 0/4] uapi, vfs: Change the mount API UAPI [ver #2]

[Dmitry V. Levin]

[looks like linux-abi is a typo, Cc'ed linux-api instead]

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 05:50:22PM +0100, Al Viro wrote:
> [linux-abi cc'd]
> 
> On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 06:31:52PM +0200, Christian Brauner wrote:
> > On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 05:22:59PM +0100, Al Viro wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 12:52:04PM +0100, David Howells wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Hi Linus, Al,
> > > > 
> > > > Here are some patches that make changes to the mount API UAPI and two of
> > > > them really need applying, before -rc1 - if they're going to be applied at
> > > > all.
> > > 
> > > I'm fine with 2--4, but I'm not convinced that cloexec-by-default crusade
> > > makes any sense.  Could somebody give coherent arguments in favour of
> > > abandoning the existing conventions?
> > 
> > So as I said in the commit message. From a userspace perspective it's
> > more of an issue if one accidently leaks an fd to a task during exec.
> > 
> > Also, most of the time one does not want to inherit an fd during an
> > exec. It is a hazzle to always have to specify an extra flag.
> > 
> > As Al pointed out to me open() semantics are not going anywhere. Sure,
> > no argument there at all.
> > But the idea of making fds cloexec by default is only targeted at fds
> > that come from separate syscalls. fsopen(), open_tree_clone(), etc. they
> > all return fds independent of open() so it's really easy to have them
> > cloexec by default without regressing anyone and we also remove the need
> > for a bunch of separate flags for each syscall to turn them into
> > cloexec-fds. I mean, those for syscalls came with 4 separate flags to be
> > able to specify that the returned fd should be made cloexec. The other
> > way around, cloexec by default, fcntl() to remove the cloexec bit is way
> > saner imho.
> 
> Re separate flags - it is, in principle, a valid argument.  OTOH, I'm not
> sure if they need to be separate - they all have the same value and
> I don't see any reason for that to change...
> 
> Only tangentially related, but I wonder if something like close_range(from, to)
> would be a more useful approach...  That kind of open-coded loops is not
> rare in userland and kernel-side code can do them much cheaper.  Something
> like
> 	/* that exec is sensitive */
> 	unshare(CLONE_FILES);
> 	/* we don't want anything past stderr here */
> 	close_range(3, ~0U);
> 	execve(....);
> on the userland side of thing.  Comments?

glibc people need a syscall to implement closefrom properly, see
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10353#c14


-- 
ldv