Re: [PATCH RFC v1] pidfd: fix a race in setting exit_state for pidfd polling

[Joel Fernandes]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2019 at 12:27 PM Christian Brauner <christian@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2019 at 06:14:05PM +0200, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> > it seems that I missed something else...
> >
> > On 07/17, Joel Fernandes (Google) wrote:
> > >
> > > @@ -1156,10 +1157,11 @@ static int wait_task_zombie(struct wait_opts *wo, struct task_struct *p)
> > >             ptrace_unlink(p);
> > >
> > >             /* If parent wants a zombie, don't release it now */
> > > -           state = EXIT_ZOMBIE;
> > > +           p->exit_state = EXIT_ZOMBIE;
> > >             if (do_notify_parent(p, p->exit_signal))
> > > -                   state = EXIT_DEAD;
> > > -           p->exit_state = state;
> > > +                   p->exit_state = EXIT_DEAD;
> > > +
> > > +           state = p->exit_state;
> > >             write_unlock_irq(&tasklist_lock);
> >
> > why do you think we also need to change wait_task_zombie() ?
> >
> > pidfd_poll() only needs the exit_state != 0 check, we know that it
> > is not zero at this point. Why do we need to change exit_state before
> > do_notify_parent() ?
>
> Oh, because of?:
>
>         /*
>          * Move the task's state to DEAD/TRACE, only one thread can do this.
>          */
>         state = (ptrace_reparented(p) && thread_group_leader(p)) ?
>                 EXIT_TRACE : EXIT_DEAD;
>         if (cmpxchg(&p->exit_state, EXIT_ZOMBIE, state) != EXIT_ZOMBIE)
>                 return 0;
>
> So exit_state will definitely be set in this scenario. Good point.
>

Agreed. Christian, do you mind dropping this hunk from the patch or do
you want me to resend the patch with the hunk dropped?