Re: [PATCH 3/7] seccomp_filter: Enable ftrace-based system callfiltering

From: Steven Rostedt
Date: Thu Apr 28 2011 - 15:07:12 EST


On Thu, 2011-04-28 at 13:34 -0500, Will Drewry wrote:

> > Perhaps, but those free standing functions (the ones that are exported
> > to modules) seem like they can destroy state.
>
> My intent was to make them available for use by seccomp.c during state
> teardown/dup. I don't think there's benefit to exposing them outside
> of that. Would dropping the export, and adding an local seccomp.h
> with the shared functions in them resolve that more cleanly?

Yes, having a local seccomp.h in the same directory as seccomp.c is a
way of saying "these are internal functions, don't use them directly".
Adding a function to EXPORT_SYMBOL*() is saying "here you go, have a
field day with it!".


>
> > Your code would have been correct if you could call kzalloc under
> > rcu_read_lock() (which you can on some kernel configurations but not
> > all). The issue is that you need to pull out that allocation from the
> > rcu_read_lock() because rcu_read_lock assumes you can't preempt, and
> > that allocation can schedule out. The access to the filters must be done
> > under rcu_read_lock(), other than that, you're fine.
>
> That makes sense. I think I'd prefer to not share those functions
> rather than guard the list just in case a future consumer of the
> interface comes along. Would that make sense to you? Since I don't
> see any other users right now other than seccomp.c, it might make
> sense to tackle the impact when an actual need arises.
>
> I'll go whichever way pointed on this, though.
> thanks again,

I'm fine either way. If you make them local internal functions, then you
don't need the locking if they are safe in their current context.

-- Steve


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