[Devel] Re: [PATCH 2/4] autofs4 - track uid and gid of last mount requester

Ian Kent raven at themaw.net
Thu Aug 7 21:44:02 PDT 2008


On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 11:48 +0800, Ian Kent wrote:
> > > 
> > > Please remind me again why autofs's use of current->uid and
> > > current->gid is not busted in the presence of PID namespaces, where
> > > these things are no longer system-wide unique?
> > 
> > I actually don't see what the autofs4_waitq->pid is used for.  It's
> > copied from current into wq->pid at autofs4_wait, and into a packet to
> > send to userspace (I assume) at autofs4_notify_daemon.
> > 
> > So as long as a daemon can serve multiple pid namespaces (which
> > doubtless it can), the pid could be confusing (or erroneous) for the
> > daemon.
> 
> Your point is well taken.
> 
> The pid is used purely for logging purposes to aid in debugging in user
> space. I'm not sure it is worth worrying about it too much as the daemon
> has no business interfering with user space processes it is not the
> owner of.
> 
> > 
> > If I'm remotely right about how the pid is being used, then the thing to
> > do would be to 
> > 	1. store the daemon's pid namespace  (would that belong in
> > 	the autofs_sb_info?)
>  
> Yep.
> 
> > 	2. store the task_pid(current) in the waitqueue
> > 	3. retrieve the pid_t for the waiting task in the daemon's
> > 	pid namespace, and put that into the packet at
> > 	autofs4_notify_daemon.
> > 
> > I realize this patch was about the *uids*, but the pids seem more
> > urgent.
> 
> OK, I get it.
> I'll have a go at doing this for completeness.

On second thoughts I'm not sure about this.

The pid that is logged needs to relate to a process in the name space of
the one that caused the mount to be done.

For example, suppose a GUI user finds mounts never expiring, then we get
a debug log to try and identify the culprit. So the pid should
correspond to a process that the user sees (So I guess in the namespace
of that user).

This is the only reason I added the pid to the request packet in the
first place.

Please correct me if my understanding of this is not right.

Ian


> 
> Ian
> 

_______________________________________________
Containers mailing list
Containers at lists.linux-foundation.org
https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/containers




More information about the Devel mailing list