[ovs-dev] [PATCH] process: block signals while spawning child processes

Ansis Atteka aatteka at nicira.com
Tue May 27 19:32:50 UTC 2014


Between fork() and execvp() calls in the process_start()
function both child and parent processes share the same
file descriptors.  This means that, if a child process
received a signal during this time interval, then it could
potentially write data to a shared file descriptor.

One such example is fatal signal handler, where, if
child process received SIGTERM signal, then it would
write data into pipe.  Then a read event would occur
on the other end of the pipe where parent process is
listening and this would make parent process to incorrectly
believe that it was the one who received SIGTERM.
Also, since parent process never reads data from this
pipe, then this bug would make parent process to consume
100% CPU by immediately waking up from the event loop.

This patch will help to avoid this problem by blocking
signals until child closes all its file descriptors.

Signed-off-by: Ansis Atteka <aatteka at nicira.com>
Reported-by: Suganya Ramachandran <suganyar at vmware.com>
Issue: 1255110
---
 lib/process.c |   26 +++++++++++++++++++++++---
 1 file changed, 23 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/process.c b/lib/process.c
index 313f11f..1270ae2 100644
--- a/lib/process.c
+++ b/lib/process.c
@@ -226,7 +226,8 @@ process_start(char **argv, struct process **pp)
 {
 #ifndef _WIN32
     pid_t pid;
-    int error;
+    int error, error2;
+    sigset_t block_mask, prev_mask;
 
     assert_single_threaded();
 
@@ -237,14 +238,21 @@ process_start(char **argv, struct process **pp)
         return error;
     }
 
+    sigfillset(&block_mask);
+    error = pthread_sigmask(SIG_BLOCK, &block_mask, &prev_mask);
+    if (error) {
+        VLOG_ERR("failed to block signals before fork: %s",
+                 ovs_strerror(error));
+        return error;
+    }
     pid = fork();
     if (pid < 0) {
         VLOG_WARN("fork failed: %s", ovs_strerror(errno));
-        return errno;
+        error = errno;
     } else if (pid) {
         /* Running in parent process. */
         *pp = process_register(argv[0], pid);
-        return 0;
+        error = 0;
     } else {
         /* Running in child process. */
         int fd_max = get_max_fds();
@@ -254,11 +262,23 @@ process_start(char **argv, struct process **pp)
         for (fd = 3; fd < fd_max; fd++) {
             close(fd);
         }
+        error = pthread_sigmask(SIG_SETMASK, &prev_mask, NULL);
+        if (error) {
+            fprintf(stderr, "failed to unblock signals for \"%s\": %s\n",
+                    argv[0], ovs_strerror(error));
+            _exit(1);
+        }
         execvp(argv[0], argv);
         fprintf(stderr, "execvp(\"%s\") failed: %s\n",
                 argv[0], ovs_strerror(errno));
         _exit(1);
     }
+    error2 = pthread_sigmask(SIG_SETMASK, &prev_mask, NULL);
+    if (error2) {
+        VLOG_FATAL("failed to unblock signals after fork: %s",
+                   ovs_strerror(error2));
+    }
+    return error;
 #else
     *pp = NULL;
     return ENOSYS;
-- 
1.7.9.5




More information about the dev mailing list