Re: [RFC PATCH] ptrace: make ptrace() fail if the tracee changed its pid unexpectedly

From: Eric W. Biederman
Date: Mon Dec 21 2020 - 15:06:02 EST


Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> On 12/17, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>
>> Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>
>> > Suppose we have 2 threads, the group-leader L and a sub-theread T,
>> > both parked in ptrace_stop(). Debugger tries to resume both threads
>> > and does
>> >
>> > ptrace(PTRACE_CONT, T);
>> > ptrace(PTRACE_CONT, L);
>> >
>> > If the sub-thread T execs in between, the 2nd PTRACE_CONT doesn not
>> > resume the old leader L, it resumes the post-exec thread T which was
>> > actually now stopped in PTHREAD_EVENT_EXEC. In this case the
>> > PTHREAD_EVENT_EXEC event is lost, and the tracer can't know that the
>> > tracee changed its pid.
>>
>> The change seems sensible. I don't expect this is common but it looks
>> painful to deal with if it happens.
>
> Yes, this is not a bug, but gdb can't handle this case without some help
> from the kernel.

>> I admit this a threaded PTRACE_EVENT_EXEC is the only event we are
>> likely to miss but still.
>
> Yes, this is the only event debugger can miss even if it uses wait()
> correctly.

I think that is my confusion with the patch. The uniqueness of this
case is not described well.


Eric