[Devel] Re: [RFC][PATCH] Do not set /proc inode->pid for non-pid-related inodes

[Serge E. Hallyn]

Quoting Herbert Poetzl (herbert at 13thfloor.at):
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2007 at 11:00:57AM -0500, Serge E. Hallyn wrote:
> > Quoting Eric W. Biederman (ebiederm at xmission.com):
> > > "Serge E. Hallyn" <serue at us.ibm.com> writes:
> > > 
> > > > Quoting Eric W. Biederman (ebiederm at xmission.com):
> > > >> Dave Hansen <hansendc at us.ibm.com> writes:
> > > >> > On Mon, 2007-03-19 at 20:04 -0600, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> > > 
> > > >> >> I would also
> > > >> >> like to see how we perform the appropriate lookups by pid
> > > >> >> namespace.
> > > >> >
> > > >> > What do you mean?
> > > >>
> > > >> proc_pid_readdir ... next_tgid().
> > > >
> > > > next_tgid() is simple enough - we can always use current->pid_ns
> > > > to find the next pidnr.
> > >
> > > No. We cannot use current->pid_ns. We must get it from the mount or
> > > something in the mount.
> > 
> > Actually I think Dave has it coming from superblock data.
> > 
> > > Using current to set the default pid_ns to mount is fine. But if
> > > we use current to select our files we have a moderately serious
> > > problem.
> > >
> > > > The only hitch, as mentioned earlier, is how do we find the first
> > > > task. Currently task 1 is statically stored as the first inode,
> > > > and as Dave mentioned we can't do that now, because we dont' know
> > > > of any one task which will outlive the pid_ns.
> > >
> > > Outlive is the wrong concept. Ideally we want something that will
> > > live as long as there are processes in the pid_ns.
> >
> > And there is no such thing.
> >
> > > As I thought about this some more there are some problems for
> > > holding a reference to a pid_ns for a long period of time. Currently
> > > struct_pid is designed so you can hang onto it forever. struct
> > > pid_namespace isn't. So we have some very interesting semantic
> > > questions of what happens when the pid namespace exits.
> > >
> > > Since we distinguish mounts by their pid namespace this looks like
> > > something we need to sort through.
> > 
> > Yup.
> > 
> > > >> While I'm not categorically opposed to supporting things like
> > > >> that it but it is something for which we need to tread very
> > > >> carefully because it is an extension of current semantics. I
> > > >> can't think of any weird semantics right now but for something
> > > >> user visible we will have to support indefinitely I don't see a
> > > >> reason to rush into it either.
> > > >
> > > > Except that unless we mandate that pid1 in any namespace can't
> > > > exit, and put that feature off until later, we can't not address
> > > > it.
> > >
> > > What if we mandate that pid1 is the last process to exit?
> > 
> > I think people have complained about that in the past for application
> > containers, but I really don't see where it hurts anything.
> > 
> > Cedric, Herbert, did one of you think it would be bad?
> 
> yes, we (Linux-VServer) consider that bad, because it
> would not allow to have lightweight containers which
> do not have a real init process ...
> 
> e.g. think: 'guest running sshd only' 

The way I'm testing pidspaces right now is

	ns_exec -c -p /usr/sbin/sshd -p 9999

in which case sshd is pid1.  Works fine...

Would it be very limiting to have the first process have to stick
around?  (I'm asking, not criticizing - it's *my* preference that we
allow pid==1 to exit, but if that's really not advantageous then
maybe it's not worth fixing the ugly pieces that require it right
now - afaik right now that's only the fact that PROC_INODE(/proc)->pid
points to the struct pid for pidnr==1)

-serge
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