On Mon 16-04-18 21:30:09, Jann Horn wrote: > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 9:18 PM, Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: [...] > > Yes, reasonably well written application will not have this problem. > > That, however, requires an external synchronization and that's why > > called it error prone and racy. I guess that was the main motivation for > > that part of the man page. > > What requires external synchronization? I still don't understand at > all what you're talking about. > > The following code: > > void *try_to_alloc_addr(void *hint, size_t len) { > char *x = mmap(hint, len, ...); > if (x == MAP_FAILED) return NULL; > if (x == hint) return x; Any other thread can modify the address space at this moment. Just consider that another thread would does mmap(x, MAP_FIXED) (or any other address overlapping [x, x+len] range) becaus it is seemingly safe as x != hint. This will succeed and ... > munmap(x, len); ... now you are munmaping somebody's else memory range > return NULL; Do code _is_ buggy but it is not obvious at all. > } > > has no need for any form of external synchronization. If the above mmap/munmap section was protected by a lock and _all_ other mmaps (direct or indirect) would use the same lock then you are safe against that. -- Michal Hocko SUSE Labs -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-api" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html