Bernd Edlinger <bernd.edlinger@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > On 3/9/20 7:36 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote: >> >> >> Does that sound better? >> > > almost done. I think this text is finally clean. exec: Add exec_update_mutex to replace cred_guard_mutex The cred_guard_mutex is problematic as it is held over possibly indefinite waits for userspace. The possilbe indefinite waits for userspace that I have identified are: The cred_guard_mutex is held in PTRACE_EVENT_EXIT waiting for the tracer. The cred_guard_mutex is held over "put_user(0, tsk->clear_child_tid)" in exit_mm(). The cred_guard_mutex is held over "get_user(futex_offset, ...") in exit_robust_list. The cred_guard_mutex held over copy_strings. The functions get_user and put_user can trigger a page fault which can potentially wait indefinitely in the case of userfaultfd or if userspace implements part of the page fault path. In any of those cases the userspace process that the kernel is waiting for might make a different system call that winds up taking the cred_guard_mutex and result in deadlock. Holding a mutex over any of those possibly indefinite waits for userspace does not appear necessary. Add exec_update_mutex that will just cover updating the process during exec where the permissions and the objects pointed to by the task struct may be out of sync. The plan is to switch the users of cred_guard_mutex to exec_update_mutex one by one. This lets us move forward while still being careful and not introducing any regressions. Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20160921152946.GA24210@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/AM6PR03MB5170B06F3A2B75EFB98D071AE4E60@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-fsdevel/20161102181806.GB1112@xxxxxxxxxx/ Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20160923095031.GA14923@xxxxxxxxxx/ Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20170213141452.GA30203@xxxxxxxxxx/ Ref: 45c1a159b85b ("Add PTRACE_O_TRACEVFORKDONE and PTRACE_O_TRACEEXIT facilities.") Ref: 456f17cd1a28 ("[PATCH] user-vm-unlock-2.5.31-A2") Signed-off-by: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Bernd do you want to give me your Reviewed-by for this part of the series? After that do you think you can write the obvious patch for mm_access? I will apply these changes to my tree and push them into linux-next. Eric