ptrace() and kernel tasks

Zack Weinberg (zack@rabi.columbia.edu)
Tue, 11 May 1999 11:55:07 -0400

ptrace(PTRACE_ATTACH, ...) will succeed for kernel tasks
(e.g. kswapd) if you are root. Subsequent operations fail, but this
appears to be an accident.

Suggestion: clear current->dumpable for kflushd/kpiod/kswapd, so that
PTRACE_ATTACH will fail. Some of the drivers (md, usb, etc.) could
use the same treatment.

It might be sensible to do this for init as well; then the special
case for pid=1 can be removed from sys_ptrace(). OTOH, you might want
the core dump if init crashed.

zw

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