[PATCH v2 06/12] ptrace: Reimplement PTRACE_KILL by always sending SIGKILL

[Eric W. Biederman]

Oleg Nesterov <oleg at redhat.com> writes:

> On 04/29, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>
>> Call send_sig_info in PTRACE_KILL instead of ptrace_resume.  Calling
>> ptrace_resume is not safe to call if the task has not been stopped
>> with ptrace_freeze_traced.
>
> Oh, I was never, never able to understand why do we have PTRACE_KILL
> and what should it actually do.
>
> I suggested many times to simply remove it but OK, we probably can't
> do this.

I thought I remembered you suggesting fixing it in some other way.

I took at quick look in codesearch.debian.net and PTRACE_KILL is
definitely in use. I find uses in gcc-10, firefox-esr_91.8,
llvm_toolchain, qtwebengine.  At which point I stopped looking.


>> --- a/kernel/ptrace.c
>> +++ b/kernel/ptrace.c
>> @@ -1238,7 +1238,7 @@ int ptrace_request(struct task_struct *child, long request,
>>  	case PTRACE_KILL:
>>  		if (child->exit_state)	/* already dead */
>>  			return 0;
>> -		return ptrace_resume(child, request, SIGKILL);
>> +		return send_sig_info(SIGKILL, SEND_SIG_NOINFO, child);
>
> Note that currently ptrace(PTRACE_KILL) can never fail (yes, yes, it
> is unsafe), but send_sig_info() can. If we do not remove PTRACE_KILL,
> then I'd suggest
>
> 	case PTRACE_KILL:
> 		if (!child->exit_state)
> 			send_sig_info(SIGKILL);
> 		return 0;
>
> to make this change a bit more compatible.


Quite.  The only failure I can find from send_sig_info is if
lock_task_sighand fails and PTRACE_KILL is deliberately ignoring errors
when the target task has exited.

 	case PTRACE_KILL:
 		send_sig_info(SIGKILL);
 		return 0;

I think that should suffice.


> Also, please remove the note about PTRACE_KILL in
> set_task_blockstep().

Good catch, thank you.

Eric