[PATCH] acct: fix the acct->needcheck check in check_free_space()

From: Oleg Nesterov
Date: Wed Dec 13 2017 - 08:39:47 EST


As Tsukada explains, the time_is_before_jiffies(acct->needcheck) check
is very wrong, we need time_is_after_jiffies() to make sys_acct() work.

Ignoring the overflows, the code should "goto out" if needcheck > jiffies,
while currently it checks "needcheck < jiffies" and thus in the likely
case check_free_space() does nothing until jiffies overflow.

In particular this means that sys_acct() is simply broken, acct_on() sets
acct->needcheck = jiffies and expects that check_free_space() should set
acct->active = 1 after the free-space check, but this won't happen if
jiffies increments in between.

This was broken by commit 32dc73086015 ("get rid of timer in kern/acct.c")
in 2011, then another (correct) commit 795a2f22a8ea ("acct() should honour
the limits from the very beginning") made the problem more visible.

Fixes: 32dc73086015 ("get rid of timer in kern/acct.c")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reported-by: TSUKADA Koutaro <tsukada@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sugested-by: TSUKADA Koutaro <tsukada@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/acct.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/kernel/acct.c b/kernel/acct.c
index 5b12843..bf90c09 100644
--- a/kernel/acct.c
+++ b/kernel/acct.c
@@ -101,7 +101,7 @@ static int check_free_space(struct bsd_acct_struct *acct)
{
struct kstatfs sbuf;

- if (time_is_before_jiffies(acct->needcheck))
+ if (time_is_after_jiffies(acct->needcheck))
goto out;

/* May block */
--
2.5.0