Re: [PATCH 3/3] prctl,syscall_user_dispatch: add a getter for configuration info

From: Andrei Vagin
Date: Thu Jan 12 2023 - 13:44:44 EST


On Mon, Jan 09, 2023 at 10:33:48AM -0500, Gregory Price wrote:
> This patch implements simple getter interface for syscall user dispatch
> configuration info.
>
> To support checkpoint/resume of a syscall user dispatch process,
> the prctl settings for syscall user dispatch must be fetchable.
> Presently, these settings are write-only, making it impossible to
> implement transparent checkpoint (coordination with the software is
> required).
>
> As Syscall User Dispatch is explicitly not for secure-container
> development, exposing the configuration state via prctl does not
> violate the original design intent.
>
> Signed-off-by: Gregory Price <gregory.price@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> .../admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst | 18 +++++++
> include/linux/syscall_user_dispatch.h | 7 +++
> include/uapi/linux/prctl.h | 3 ++
> kernel/entry/syscall_user_dispatch.c | 14 +++++
> kernel/sys.c | 4 ++
> .../syscall_user_dispatch/sud_test.c | 54 +++++++++++++++++++
> 6 files changed, 100 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst
> index 60314953c728..8b2c8b6441b7 100644
> --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst
> @@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ only the syscall dispatcher address and the userspace key.
> As the ABI of these intercepted syscalls is unknown to Linux, these
> syscalls are not instrumentable via ptrace or the syscall tracepoints.
>
> +A getter interface is supplied for the purpose of userland
> +checkpoint/restore software being able to suspend and restore the
> +current state of the system.
> +
> Interface
> ---------
>
> @@ -73,6 +77,20 @@ thread-wide, without the need to invoke the kernel directly. selector
> can be set to SYSCALL_DISPATCH_FILTER_ALLOW or SYSCALL_DISPATCH_FILTER_BLOCK.
> Any other value should terminate the program with a SIGSYS.
>
> +
> +A thread can fetch the current Syscall User Dispatch configuration with the following prctl:
> +
> + prctl(PR_GET_SYSCALL_USER_DISPATCH, <dispatch_config>))
> +
> +<dispatch_config> is a pointer to a ``struct syscall_user_dispatch`` as defined in ``linux/include/linux/syscall_user_dispatch.h``::

syscall_user_dispatch.h isn't a part of uapi, so I am not sure that it
is a good idea to use it here.

For criu, it is much more convinient to have a ptrace interface to get
this sort of parameters. prctl requires to execute a system call from a
context of the target process. It is tricky so we want to minimize a
number of such calls.

Thanks,
Andrei