Thread (14 messages) 14 messages, 5 authors, 2019-09-25

Re: For review: pidfd_send_signal(2) manual page

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From: Florian Weimer <hidden>
Date: 2019-09-23 11:26:49
Also in: linux-man, lkml

* Michael Kerrisk:
SYNOPSIS
       int pidfd_send_signal(int pidfd, int sig, siginfo_t info,
                             unsigned int flags);
This probably should reference a header for siginfo_t.
       ESRCH  The target process does not exist.
If the descriptor is valid, does this mean the process has been waited
for?  Maybe this can be made more explicit.
       The  pidfd_send_signal()  system call allows the avoidance of race
       conditions that occur when using traditional interfaces  (such  as
       kill(2)) to signal a process.  The problem is that the traditional
       interfaces specify the target process via a process ID (PID), with
       the  result  that the sender may accidentally send a signal to the
       wrong process if the originally intended target process has termi‐
       nated  and its PID has been recycled for another process.  By con‐
       trast, a PID file descriptor is a stable reference to  a  specific
       process;  if  that  process  terminates,  then the file descriptor
       ceases to be  valid  and  the  caller  of  pidfd_send_signal()  is
       informed of this fact via an ESRCH error.
It would be nice to explain somewhere how you can avoid the race using
a PID descriptor.  Is there anything else besides CLONE_PIDFD?
       static
       int pidfd_send_signal(int pidfd, int sig, siginfo_t *info,
               unsigned int flags)
       {
           return syscall(__NR_pidfd_send_signal, pidfd, sig, info, flags);
       }
Please use a different function name.  Thanks.
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