Re: [PATCH 0/2] Don't show PF_IO_WORKER in /proc/<pid>/task/

From: Eric W. Biederman
Date: Thu Mar 25 2021 - 16:23:34 EST


Jens Axboe <axboe@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

> On 3/25/21 1:42 PM, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 12:38 PM Linus Torvalds
>> <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't know what the gdb logic is, but maybe there's some other
>>> option that makes gdb not react to them?
>>
>> .. maybe we could have a different name for them under the task/
>> subdirectory, for example (not just the pid)? Although that probably
>> messes up 'ps' too..
>
> Heh, I can try, but my guess is that it would mess up _something_, if
> not ps/top.

Hmm.

So looking quickly the flip side of the coin is gdb (and other
debuggers) needs a way to know these threads are special, so it can know
not to attach.

I suspect getting -EPERM (or possibly a different error code) when
attempting attach is the right was to know that a thread is not
available to be debugged.

Eric