[Fixing Serge's address in my original CC]
On 12/11/2016 11:30 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>> [was: [PATCH 0/4 v3] Add an interface to discover relationships
>> between namespaces]
>
> One small comment below.
>
>>
>> Introspecting namespace relationships
>> Since Linux 4.9, two ioctl(2) operations are provided to allow
>> introspection of namespace relationships (see user_namespaces(7)
>> and pid_namespaces(7)). The form of the calls is:
>>
>> ioctl(fd, request);
>>
>> In each case, fd refers to a /proc/[pid]/ns/* file.
>>
>> NS_GET_USERNS
>> Returns a file descriptor that refers to the owning user
>> namespace for the namespace referred to by fd.
>>
>> NS_GET_PARENT
>> Returns a file descriptor that refers to the parent names‐
>> pace of the namespace referred to by fd. This operation is
>> valid only for hierarchical namespaces (i.e., PID and user
>> namespaces). For user namespaces, NS_GET_PARENT is synony‐
>> mous with NS_GET_USERNS.
>>
>> In each case, the returned file descriptor is opened with O_RDONLY
>> and O_CLOEXEC (close-on-exec).
>>
>> By applying fstat(2) to the returned file descriptor, one obtains
>> a stat structure whose st_ino (inode number) field identifies the
>> owning/parent namespace. This inode number can be matched with
>> the inode number of another /proc/[pid]/ns/{pid,user} file to
>> determine whether that is the owning/parent namespace.
>
> Like all fstat inode comparisons to be fully accurate you need to
> compare both the st_ino and st_dev. I reserve the right for st_dev to
> be significant when comparing namespaces. Otherwise I might have to
> create a namespace of namespaces someday and that is ugly.
Ah yes. Thanks for catching that. I've adjusted the text,
and the example program.
Cheers,
Michael
>> Either of these ioctl(2) operations can fail with the following
>> error:
>>
>> EPERM The requested namespace is outside of the caller's names‐
>> pace scope. This error can occur if, for example, the own‐
>> ing user namespace is an ancestor of the caller's current
>> user namespace. It can also occur on attempts to obtain
>> the parent of the initial user or PID namespace.
>>
>> Additionally, the NS_GET_PARENT operation can fail with the fol‐
>> lowing error:
>>
>> EINVAL fd refers to a nonhierarchical namespace.
>>
>> See the EXAMPLE section for an example of the use of these opera‐
>> tions.
>>
>> [...]
>
> Eric
>
--
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/
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