This reverts commit abdfd4948e.
The changelog in this commit explains why it is not easy to avoid ns == NULL
when the caller is exiting, but pid_vnr() is equally unsafe in this case.
However, commit 006568ab4c ("pid: Add a judgment for ns null in pid_nr_ns")
already added the ns != NULL check in pid_nr_ns(), so we can remove the same
check from __task_pid_nr_ns().
Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251015123613.GA9456@redhat.com
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Mateusz reported performance penalties [1] during task creation because
pidfs uses pidmap_lock to add elements into the rbtree. Switch to an
rhashtable to have separate fine-grained locking and to decouple from
pidmap_lock moving all heavy manipulations outside of it.
Convert the pidfs inode-to-pid mapping from an rb-tree with seqcount
protection to an rhashtable. This removes the global pidmap_lock
contention from pidfs_ino_get_pid() lookups and allows the hashtable
insert to happen outside the pidmap_lock.
pidfs_add_pid() is split. pidfs_prepare_pid() allocates inode number and
initializes pid fields and is called inside pidmap_lock. pidfs_add_pid()
inserts pid into rhashtable and is called outside pidmap_lock. Insertion
into the rhashtable can fail and memory allocation may happen so we need
to drop the spinlock.
To guard against accidently opening an already reaped task
pidfs_ino_get_pid() uses additional checks beyond pid_vnr(). If
pid->attr is PIDFS_PID_DEAD or NULL the pid either never had a pidfd or
it already went through pidfs_exit() aka the process as already reaped.
If pid->attr is valid check PIDFS_ATTR_BIT_EXIT to figure out whether
the task has exited.
This slightly changes visibility semantics: pidfd creation is denied
after pidfs_exit() runs, which is just before the pid number is removed
from the via free_pid(). That should not be an issue though.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20251206131955.780557-1-mjguzik@gmail.com [1]
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260120-work-pidfs-rhashtable-v2-1-d593c4d0f576@kernel.org
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
When spawning and killing threads in separate processes in parallel the
primary bottleneck on the stock kernel is pidmap_lock, largely because
of a back-to-back acquire in the common case. This aspect is fixed with
the patch.
Performance improvement varies between reboots. When benchmarking with
20 processes creating and killing threads in a loop, the unpatched
baseline hovers around 465k ops/s, while patched is anything between
~510k ops/s and ~560k depending on false-sharing (which I only minimally
sanitized). So this is at least 10% if you are unlucky.
The change also facilitated some cosmetic fixes.
It has an unintentional side effect of no longer issuing spurious
idr_preload() around idr_replace().
Signed-off-by: Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@gmail.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251203092851.287617-3-mjguzik@gmail.com
Reviewed-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
The namespace tree is, among other things, currently used to support
file handles for namespaces. When a namespace is created it is placed on
the namespace trees and when it is destroyed it is removed from the
namespace trees.
While a namespace is on the namespace trees with a valid reference count
it is possible to reopen it through a namespace file handle. This is all
fine but has some issues that should be addressed.
On current kernels a namespace is visible to userspace in the
following cases:
(1) The namespace is in use by a task.
(2) The namespace is persisted through a VFS object (namespace file
descriptor or bind-mount).
Note that (2) only cares about direct persistence of the namespace
itself not indirectly via e.g., file->f_cred file references or
similar.
(3) The namespace is a hierarchical namespace type and is the parent of
a single or multiple child namespaces.
Case (3) is interesting because it is possible that a parent namespace
might not fulfill any of (1) or (2), i.e., is invisible to userspace but
it may still be resurrected through the NS_GET_PARENT ioctl().
Currently namespace file handles allow much broader access to namespaces
than what is currently possible via (1)-(3). The reason is that
namespaces may remain pinned for completely internal reasons yet are
inaccessible to userspace.
For example, a user namespace my remain pinned by get_cred() calls to
stash the opener's credentials into file->f_cred. As it stands file
handles allow to resurrect such a users namespace even though this
should not be possible via (1)-(3). This is a fundamental uapi change
that we shouldn't do if we don't have to.
Consider the following insane case: Various architectures support the
CONFIG_MMU_LAZY_TLB_REFCOUNT option which uses lazy TLB destruction.
When this option is set a userspace task's struct mm_struct may be used
for kernel threads such as the idle task and will only be destroyed once
the cpu's runqueue switches back to another task. But because of ptrace()
permission checks struct mm_struct stashes the user namespace of the
task that struct mm_struct originally belonged to. The kernel thread
will take a reference on the struct mm_struct and thus pin it.
So on an idle system user namespaces can be persisted for arbitrary
amounts of time which also means that they can be resurrected using
namespace file handles. That makes no sense whatsoever. The problem is
of course excarabted on large systems with a huge number of cpus.
To handle this nicely we introduce an active reference count which
tracks (1)-(3). This is easy to do as all of these things are already
managed centrally. Only (1)-(3) will count towards the active reference
count and only namespaces which are active may be opened via namespace
file handles.
The problem is that namespaces may be resurrected. Which means that they
can become temporarily inactive and will be reactived some time later.
Currently the only example of this is the SIOGCSKNS socket ioctl. The
SIOCGSKNS ioctl allows to open a network namespace file descriptor based
on a socket file descriptor.
If a socket is tied to a network namespace that subsequently becomes
inactive but that socket is persisted by another process in another
network namespace (e.g., via SCM_RIGHTS of pidfd_getfd()) then the
SIOCGSKNS ioctl will resurrect this network namespace.
So calls to open_related_ns() and open_namespace() will end up
resurrecting the corresponding namespace tree.
Note that the active reference count does not regulate the lifetime of
the namespace itself. This is still done by the normal reference count.
The active reference count can only be elevated if the regular reference
count is elevated.
The active reference count also doesn't regulate the presence of a
namespace on the namespace trees. It only regulates its visiblity to
namespace file handles (and in later patches to listns()).
A namespace remains on the namespace trees from creation until its
actual destruction. This will allow the kernel to always reach any
namespace trivially and it will also enable subsystems like bpf to walk
the namespace lists on the system for tracing or general introspection
purposes.
Note that different namespaces have different visibility lifetimes on
current kernels. While most namespace are immediately released when the
last task using them exits, the user- and pid namespace are persisted
and thus both remain accessible via /proc/<pid>/ns/<ns_type>.
The user namespace lifetime is aliged with struct cred and is only
released through exit_creds(). However, it becomes inaccessible to
userspace once the last task using it is reaped, i.e., when
release_task() is called and all proc entries are flushed. Similarly,
the pid namespace is also visible until the last task using it has been
reaped and the associated pid numbers are freed.
The active reference counts of the user- and pid namespace are
decremented once the task is reaped.
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251029-work-namespace-nstree-listns-v4-11-2e6f823ebdc0@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Pull namespace updates from Christian Brauner:
"This contains a larger set of changes around the generic namespace
infrastructure of the kernel.
Each specific namespace type (net, cgroup, mnt, ...) embedds a struct
ns_common which carries the reference count of the namespace and so
on.
We open-coded and cargo-culted so many quirks for each namespace type
that it just wasn't scalable anymore. So given there's a bunch of new
changes coming in that area I've started cleaning all of this up.
The core change is to make it possible to correctly initialize every
namespace uniformly and derive the correct initialization settings
from the type of the namespace such as namespace operations, namespace
type and so on. This leaves the new ns_common_init() function with a
single parameter which is the specific namespace type which derives
the correct parameters statically. This also means the compiler will
yell as soon as someone does something remotely fishy.
The ns_common_init() addition also allows us to remove ns_alloc_inum()
and drops any special-casing of the initial network namespace in the
network namespace initialization code that Linus complained about.
Another part is reworking the reference counting. The reference
counting was open-coded and copy-pasted for each namespace type even
though they all followed the same rules. This also removes all open
accesses to the reference count and makes it private and only uses a
very small set of dedicated helpers to manipulate them just like we do
for e.g., files.
In addition this generalizes the mount namespace iteration
infrastructure introduced a few cycles ago. As reminder, the vfs makes
it possible to iterate sequentially and bidirectionally through all
mount namespaces on the system or all mount namespaces that the caller
holds privilege over. This allow userspace to iterate over all mounts
in all mount namespaces using the listmount() and statmount() system
call.
Each mount namespace has a unique identifier for the lifetime of the
systems that is exposed to userspace. The network namespace also has a
unique identifier working exactly the same way. This extends the
concept to all other namespace types.
The new nstree type makes it possible to lookup namespaces purely by
their identifier and to walk the namespace list sequentially and
bidirectionally for all namespace types, allowing userspace to iterate
through all namespaces. Looking up namespaces in the namespace tree
works completely locklessly.
This also means we can move the mount namespace onto the generic
infrastructure and remove a bunch of code and members from struct
mnt_namespace itself.
There's a bunch of stuff coming on top of this in the future but for
now this uses the generic namespace tree to extend a concept
introduced first for pidfs a few cycles ago. For a while now we have
supported pidfs file handles for pidfds. This has proven to be very
useful.
This extends the concept to cover namespaces as well. It is possible
to encode and decode namespace file handles using the common
name_to_handle_at() and open_by_handle_at() apis.
As with pidfs file handles, namespace file handles are exhaustive,
meaning it is not required to actually hold a reference to nsfs in
able to decode aka open_by_handle_at() a namespace file handle.
Instead the FD_NSFS_ROOT constant can be passed which will let the
kernel grab a reference to the root of nsfs internally and thus decode
the file handle.
Namespaces file descriptors can already be derived from pidfds which
means they aren't subject to overmount protection bugs. IOW, it's
irrelevant if the caller would not have access to an appropriate
/proc/<pid>/ns/ directory as they could always just derive the
namespace based on a pidfd already.
It has the same advantage as pidfds. It's possible to reliably and for
the lifetime of the system refer to a namespace without pinning any
resources and to compare them trivially.
Permission checking is kept simple. If the caller is located in the
namespace the file handle refers to they are able to open it otherwise
they must hold privilege over the owning namespace of the relevant
namespace.
The namespace file handle layout is exposed as uapi and has a stable
and extensible format. For now it simply contains the namespace
identifier, the namespace type, and the inode number. The stable
format means that userspace may construct its own namespace file
handles without going through name_to_handle_at() as they are already
allowed for pidfs and cgroup file handles"
* tag 'namespace-6.18-rc1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs: (65 commits)
ns: drop assert
ns: move ns type into struct ns_common
nstree: make struct ns_tree private
ns: add ns_debug()
ns: simplify ns_common_init() further
cgroup: add missing ns_common include
ns: use inode initializer for initial namespaces
selftests/namespaces: verify initial namespace inode numbers
ns: rename to __ns_ref
nsfs: port to ns_ref_*() helpers
net: port to ns_ref_*() helpers
uts: port to ns_ref_*() helpers
ipv4: use check_net()
net: use check_net()
net-sysfs: use check_net()
user: port to ns_ref_*() helpers
time: port to ns_ref_*() helpers
pid: port to ns_ref_*() helpers
ipc: port to ns_ref_*() helpers
cgroup: port to ns_ref_*() helpers
...
Pull pidfs updates from Christian Brauner:
"This just contains a few changes to pid_nr_ns() to make it more robust
and cleans up or improves a few users that ab- or misuse it currently"
* tag 'vfs-6.18-rc1.pidfs' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs:
pid: change task_state() to use task_ppid_nr_ns()
pid: change bacct_add_tsk() to use task_ppid_nr_ns()
pid: make __task_pid_nr_ns(ns => NULL) safe for zombie callers
pid: Add a judgment for ns null in pid_nr_ns
It's misplaced in struct proc_ns_operations and ns->ops might be NULL if
the namespace is compiled out but we still want to know the type of the
namespace for the initial namespace struct.
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
The capability check should not be audited since it is only being used
to determine the inode permissions. A failed check does not indicate a
violation of security policy but, when an LSM is enabled, a denial audit
message was being generated.
The denial audit message can either lead to the capability being
unnecessarily allowed in a security policy, or being silenced potentially
masking a legitimate capability check at a later point in time.
Similar to commit d6169b0206 ("net: Use ns_capable_noaudit() when
determining net sysctl permissions")
Fixes: 7863dcc72d ("pid: allow pid_max to be set per pid namespace")
CC: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
CC: linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org
CC: selinux@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Christian Göttsche <cgzones@googlemail.com>
Acked-by: Serge Hallyn <serge@hallyn.com>
Reviewed-by: Paul Moore <paul@paul-moore.com>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Pull sysctl updates from Joel Granados:
- Move sysctls out of the kern_table array
This is the final move of ctl_tables into their respective
subsystems. Only 5 (out of the original 50) will remain in
kernel/sysctl.c file; these handle either sysctl or common arch
variables.
By decentralizing sysctl registrations, subsystem maintainers regain
control over their sysctl interfaces, improving maintainability and
reducing the likelihood of merge conflicts.
- docs: Remove false positives from check-sysctl-docs
Stopped falsely identifying sysctls as undocumented or unimplemented
in the check-sysctl-docs script. This script can now be used to
automatically identify if documentation is missing.
* tag 'sysctl-6.17-rc1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/sysctl/sysctl: (23 commits)
docs: Downgrade arm64 & riscv from titles to comment
docs: Replace spaces with tabs in check-sysctl-docs
docs: Remove colon from ctltable title in vm.rst
docs: Add awk section for ucount sysctl entries
docs: Use skiplist when checking sysctl admin-guide
docs: nixify check-sysctl-docs
sysctl: rename kern_table -> sysctl_subsys_table
kernel/sys.c: Move overflow{uid,gid} sysctl into kernel/sys.c
uevent: mv uevent_helper into kobject_uevent.c
sysctl: Removed unused variable
sysctl: Nixify sysctl.sh
sysctl: Remove superfluous includes from kernel/sysctl.c
sysctl: Remove (very) old file changelog
sysctl: Move sysctl_panic_on_stackoverflow to kernel/panic.c
sysctl: move cad_pid into kernel/pid.c
sysctl: Move tainted ctl_table into kernel/panic.c
Input: sysrq: mv sysrq into drivers/tty/sysrq.c
fork: mv threads-max into kernel/fork.c
parisc/power: Move soft-power into power.c
mm: move randomize_va_space into memory.c
...
Move cad_pid as well as supporting function proc_do_cad_pid into
kernel/pic.c. Replaced call to __do_proc_dointvec with proc_dointvec
inside proc_do_cad_pid which requires the copy of the ctl_table to
handle the temp value.
This is part of a greater effort to move ctl tables into their
respective subsystems which will reduce the merge conflicts in
kernel/sysctl.c.
Reviewed-by: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Joel Granados <joel.granados@kernel.org>
Persist exit and coredump information independent of whether anyone
currently holds a pidfd for the struct pid.
The current scheme allocated pidfs dentries on-demand repeatedly.
This scheme is reaching it's limits as it makes it impossible to pin
information that needs to be available after the task has exited or
coredumped and that should not be lost simply because the pidfd got
closed temporarily. The next opener should still see the stashed
information.
This is also a prerequisite for supporting extended attributes on
pidfds to allow attaching meta information to them.
If someone opens a pidfd for a struct pid a pidfs dentry is allocated
and stashed in pid->stashed. Once the last pidfd for the struct pid is
closed the pidfs dentry is released and removed from pid->stashed.
So if 10 callers create a pidfs dentry for the same struct pid
sequentially, i.e., each closing the pidfd before the other creates a
new one then a new pidfs dentry is allocated every time.
Because multiple tasks acquiring and releasing a pidfd for the same
struct pid can race with each another a task may still find a valid
pidfs entry from the previous task in pid->stashed and reuse it. Or it
might find a dead dentry in there and fail to reuse it and so stashes a
new pidfs dentry. Multiple tasks may race to stash a new pidfs dentry
but only one will succeed, the other ones will put their dentry.
The current scheme aims to ensure that a pidfs dentry for a struct pid
can only be created if the task is still alive or if a pidfs dentry
already existed before the task was reaped and so exit information has
been was stashed in the pidfs inode.
That's great except that it's buggy. If a pidfs dentry is stashed in
pid->stashed after pidfs_exit() but before __unhash_process() is called
we will return a pidfd for a reaped task without exit information being
available.
The pidfds_pid_valid() check does not guard against this race as it
doens't sync at all with pidfs_exit(). The pid_has_task() check might be
successful simply because we're before __unhash_process() but after
pidfs_exit().
Introduce a new scheme where the lifetime of information associated with
a pidfs entry (coredump and exit information) isn't bound to the
lifetime of the pidfs inode but the struct pid itself.
The first time a pidfs dentry is allocated for a struct pid a struct
pidfs_attr will be allocated which will be used to store exit and
coredump information.
If all pidfs for the pidfs dentry are closed the dentry and inode can be
cleaned up but the struct pidfs_attr will stick until the struct pid
itself is freed. This will ensure minimal memory usage while persisting
relevant information.
The new scheme has various advantages. First, it allows to close the
race where we end up handing out a pidfd for a reaped task for which no
exit information is available. Second, it minimizes memory usage.
Third, it allows to remove complex lifetime tracking via dentries when
registering a struct pid with pidfs. There's no need to get or put a
reference. Instead, the lifetime of exit and coredump information
associated with a struct pid is bound to the lifetime of struct pid
itself.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20250618-work-pidfs-persistent-v2-5-98f3456fd552@kernel.org
Reviewed-by: Alexander Mikhalitsyn <aleksandr.mikhalitsyn@canonical.com>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Now that we have pidfs_{get,register}_pid() that needs to be paired with
pidfs_put_pid() it's possible that someone pairs them with put_pid().
Thus freeing struct pid while it's still used by pidfs. Notice when that
happens. I'll also add a scheme to detect invalid uses of
pidfs_get_pid() and pidfs_put_pid() later.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20250506-uferbereich-guttun-7c8b1a0a431f@brauner
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Pull tasklist_lock optimizations from Christian Brauner:
"According to the performance testbots this brings a 23% performance
increase when creating new processes:
- Reduce tasklist_lock hold time on exit:
- Perform add_device_randomness() without tasklist_lock
- Perform free_pid() calls outside of tasklist_lock
- Drop irq disablement around pidmap_lock
- Add some tasklist_lock asserts
- Call flush_sigqueue() lockless by changing release_task()
- Don't pointlessly clear TIF_SIGPENDING in __exit_signal() ->
clear_tsk_thread_flag()"
* tag 'kernel-6.15-rc1.tasklist_lock' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs:
pid: drop irq disablement around pidmap_lock
pid: perform free_pid() calls outside of tasklist_lock
pid: sprinkle tasklist_lock asserts
exit: hoist get_pid() in release_task() outside of tasklist_lock
exit: perform add_device_randomness() without tasklist_lock
exit: kill the pointless __exit_signal()->clear_tsk_thread_flag(TIF_SIGPENDING)
exit: change the release_task() paths to call flush_sigqueue() lockless
As the clone side already executes pid allocation with only pidmap_lock
held, issuing free_pid() while still holding tasklist_lock exacerbates
total hold time of the latter.
More things may show up later which require initial clean up with the
lock held and allow finishing without it. For that reason a struct to
collect such work is added instead of merely passing the pid array.
Reviewed-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@gmail.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250206164415.450051-5-mjguzik@gmail.com
Acked-by: "Liam R. Howlett" <Liam.Howlett@Oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
It is useful to be able to utilise the pidfd mechanism to reference the
current thread or process (from a userland point of view - thread group
leader from the kernel's point of view).
Therefore introduce PIDFD_SELF_THREAD to refer to the current thread, and
PIDFD_SELF_THREAD_GROUP to refer to the current thread group leader.
For convenience and to avoid confusion from userland's perspective we alias
these:
* PIDFD_SELF is an alias for PIDFD_SELF_THREAD - This is nearly always what
the user will want to use, as they would find it surprising if for
instance fd's were unshared()'d and they wanted to invoke pidfd_getfd()
and that failed.
* PIDFD_SELF_PROCESS is an alias for PIDFD_SELF_THREAD_GROUP - Most users
have no concept of thread groups or what a thread group leader is, and
from userland's perspective and nomenclature this is what userland
considers to be a process.
We adjust pidfd_get_task() and the pidfd_send_signal() system call with
specific handling for this, implementing this functionality for
process_madvise(), process_mrelease() (albeit, using it here wouldn't
really make sense) and pidfd_send_signal().
Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/24315a16a3d01a548dd45c7515f7d51c767e954e.1738268370.git.lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Oleg Nesterov
Mateusz Guzik
Christian Brauner
Linus Torvalds
Christian Göttsche
gaoxiang17
Joel Granados
Lorenzo Stoakes