Re: [PATCH] tools: jobserver: Add validation for jobserver tokens to ensure valid '+' characters
From: duchangbin
Date: Mon Jan 05 2026 - 03:26:08 EST
Kindly ping for this fix. This patch resolves the issue where kernel compilation
gets stuck in certain situations.
On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 02:26:22PM +0800, Changbin Du wrote:
> Add validation for jobserver tokens to prevent infinite loops on invalid fds
> When using GNU Make's jobserver feature in kernel builds, a bug in MAKEFLAGS
> propagation caused "--jobserver-auth=3,4" to reference an unintended file
> descriptor (Here, fd 3 was inherited from a shell command that opened
> "/etc/passwd" instead of a valid pipe). This led to infinite loops in
> jobserver-exec's os.read() calls due to empty or corrupted tokens. (The
> version of my make is 4.3)
>
> $ ls -l /proc/self/fd
> total 0
> lrwx------ 1 changbin changbin 64 Dec 25 13:03 0 -> /dev/pts/1
> lrwx------ 1 changbin changbin 64 Dec 25 13:03 1 -> /dev/pts/1
> lrwx------ 1 changbin changbin 64 Dec 25 13:03 2 -> /dev/pts/1
> lr-x------ 1 changbin changbin 64 Dec 25 13:03 3 -> /etc/passwd
> lr-x------ 1 changbin changbin 64 Dec 25 13:03 4 -> /proc/1421383/fd
>
> The modified code now explicitly validates tokens:
> 1. Rejects empty reads (prevents infinite loops on EOF)
> 2. Checks all bytes are '+' characters (catches fd reuse issues)
> 3. Raises ValueError with clear diagnostics for debugging
> This ensures robustness against invalid jobserver configurations, even when
> external tools (like make) incorrectly pass non-pipe file descriptors.
>
> Signed-off-by: Changbin Du <changbin.du@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> tools/lib/python/jobserver.py | 2 ++
> 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/tools/lib/python/jobserver.py b/tools/lib/python/jobserver.py
> index a24f30ef4fa8..88d005f96bed 100755
> --- a/tools/lib/python/jobserver.py
> +++ b/tools/lib/python/jobserver.py
> @@ -91,6 +91,8 @@ class JobserverExec:
> while True:
> try:
> slot = os.read(self.reader, 8)
> + if not slot or any(c != b'+'[0] for c in slot):
> + raise ValueError("empty or unexpected token from jobserver")
> self.jobs += slot
> except (OSError, IOError) as e:
> if e.errno == errno.EWOULDBLOCK:
> --
> 2.43.0
>
--
Cheers,
Changbin Du