Re: 2.6.25.3: su gets stuck for root

From: Vegard Nossum
Date: Mon Jun 02 2008 - 06:17:15 EST


On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Alan Cox <alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:31:34 +0930
> David Newall <davidn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Alan Cox wrote:
>> > Not really. The task would get suspended if it attempted to change the
>> > tty settings while not being session leader. This is part of the POSIX
>> > and BSD job control.
>>
>> I haven't heard about this new restriction, but it begs the observation
>> that stty, when forked from a shell (the usual case), is never a session
>> leader.
>
> Sorry I mean part of the current session. I was thinking about the
> specific case of bash or the ssh->bash setup where the question would be
> whether the shell was session leader.
>
> Someone who can dup this needs to instrument it in tty_ioctl really.

Hi,

I have written a short test program that seems to reproduce it for me
(see attachment), even though the original su/stty stuff wouldn't.

Basically, the strace shows this:
ioctl(0, SNDCTL_TMR_START or TCSETS, {B38400 opost isig icanon echo
...}) = ? ERESTARTSYS (To be restarted)
--- SIGTTOU (Stopped (tty output)) @ 0 (0) ---
--- SIGTTOU (Stopped (tty output)) @ 0 (0) ---
ioctl(0, SNDCTL_TMR_START or TCSETS, {B38400 opost isig icanon echo
...}) = ? ERESTARTSYS (To be restarted)
--- SIGTTOU (Stopped (tty output)) @ 0 (0) ---
--- SIGTTOU (Stopped (tty output)) @ 0 (0) ---
... (repeating)

The exact code path triggering this seems to be:

tcsetattr() -> ioctl(TCSETS) -> set_termios() -> tty_check_change()

This is on a 2.6.24.5-85.fc8 kernel.

I don't know what's wrong, but I hope this helps.


Vegard

--
"The animistic metaphor of the bug that maliciously sneaked in while
the programmer was not looking is intellectually dishonest as it
disguises that the error is the programmer's own creation."
-- E. W. Dijkstra, EWD1036
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>

#include <errno.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <termios.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
pid_t child;

printf("pgid = %d\n", getpgrp());

child = fork();
if (child == 0) {
struct termios termios_p;

printf("forked, pgid = %d\n", getpgrp());

if (setpgrp() == -1) {
printf("error: setpgid: %s\n", strerror(errno));
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

printf("new pgid = %d\n", getpgrp());

if (tcgetattr(STDIN_FILENO, &termios_p) == -1) {
printf("error: tcgetattr: %s\n", strerror(errno));
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

if (tcsetattr(STDIN_FILENO, 0, &termios_p) == -1) {
printf("error: tcsetattr: %s\n", strerror(errno));
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

printf("forked, child = %d\n", child);

while (1) {
pid_t pid;
int status;

pid = wait(&status);
if (pid == -1) {
printf("error: wait: %s\n", strerror(errno));
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

printf("pid %d status %d\n", pid, status);
}

return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}