A while ago it was reported that posix file locking goes wrong when a multi-threaded process calls exec. I looked into the history and this is definitely a regression, that should be fixed if we can. This set of changes cleanups of the code in exec so hopefully this code will not regress again. Then it adds helpers and fixes the users of files_struct so the reference count is only incremented if COPY_FILES is passed to clone. Then it removes helpers (get_files_struct, __install_fd, __alloc_fd, __close_fd) that are no longer needed and if used would encourage code that increments the count of files_struct somewhere besides in clone when COPY_FILES is passed. In addition to fixing the bug in exec and simplifing the code this set of changes by virtue of getting files_struct.count correct it optimizes fdget. With proc and other places not temporarily increasing the count on files_struct __fget_light should succeed more often in being able to return a struct file without touching it's reference count. Fixing the count in files_struct was suggested by Oleg[1]. For those that are interested in the history of this issue I have included as much of it as I could find in the first change. fs/coredump.c | 5 +-- fs/exec.c | 26 ++++++----- fs/file.c | 110 +++++++++++++++++++++-------------------------- fs/open.c | 2 +- fs/proc/fd.c | 47 +++++++------------- include/linux/fdtable.h | 13 ++---- include/linux/syscalls.h | 6 +-- kernel/bpf/syscall.c | 20 ++------- kernel/bpf/task_iter.c | 43 +++++------------- kernel/fork.c | 12 +++--- kernel/kcmp.c | 20 ++------- 11 files changed, 109 insertions(+), 195 deletions(-) Eric W. Biederman (17): exec: Move unshare_files to fix posix file locking during exec exec: Simplify unshare_files exec: Remove reset_files_struct kcmp: In kcmp_epoll_target use fget_task bpf: In bpf_task_fd_query use fget_task file: Implement fcheck_task proc/fd: In tid_fd_mode use fcheck_task proc/fd: In proc_fd_link use fcheck_task file: Implement fnext_task proc/fd: In proc_readfd_common use fnext_task bpf/task_iter: In task_file_seq_get_next use fnext_task proc/fd: In fdinfo seq_show don't use get_files_struct file: Remove get_files_struct file: Merge __fd_install into fd_install file: In f_dupfd read RLIMIT_NOFILE once. file: Merge __alloc_fd into alloc_fd file: Rename __close_fd to close_fd and remove the files parameter [1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180915160423.GA31461@xxxxxxxxxx Reported-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@xxxxxxxxxx> Reported-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@xxxxxxxxxx> Suggested-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Eric