Re: Porting vfork()

Jamie Lokier (lkd@tantalophile.demon.co.uk)
Mon, 11 Jan 1999 10:37:13 +0000

On Sun, Jan 10, 1999 at 12:33:00PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com> wrote:
> > You could make it a special kind of killable - where you can _only_
> > kill it (ie only fatal signals will be serviced), and that would work.
> > I wouldn't do that until people actually start to complain. It's not a
> > security issue, as the parent _can_ be killed - you just have to kill
> > the child first.
>
> Somebody needs to think about: while(1){vfork();}

Somebody also needs to think about setuid root programs doing:

if (!vfork()) {setreuid(Someone_Else,Someone_Else); /* Stuff */; execve(...);}

While Someone_Else is busy sending SIGSTOPs to all their processes.

I know setuid programs _ought_ to be aware of security issues and
presumably not use vfork() here.

Is this change going to affect any of the existing ones?

-- Jamie

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