Thread (57 messages) 57 messages, 4 authors, 2020-05-26

Re: [PATCH 02/14] prctl.2: Add health warning

From: Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) <hidden>
Date: 2020-05-13 10:10:38
Also in: linux-arch, linux-man

Hi Dave,

On 5/12/20 6:36 PM, Dave Martin wrote:
In reality, almost every prctl interferes with assumptions that the
compiler and C library / runtime rely on.  prctl() can therefore
make userspace explode in a variety ways that are likely to be hard
to debug.

This is not obvious to the uninitiated, so add a warning.
Patch applied. But see my comments on patch 04. I may want to 
circle back on this patch later, since the wording feels a 
little strong to me (we simply must use prctl for some things, 
and not all of those things break user-space/runtime as far 
as I know). If you have some thoughts on softening the warning,
let me know.

Cheers,

Michael
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
Signed-off-by: Dave Martin <Dave.Martin@arm.com>
---
 man2/prctl.2 | 5 +++++
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)
diff --git a/man2/prctl.2 b/man2/prctl.2
index 7932ada..a35b748 100644
--- a/man2/prctl.2
+++ b/man2/prctl.2
@@ -66,6 +66,11 @@ prctl \- operations on a process or thread
 manipulates various aspects of the behavior
 of the calling thread or process.
 .PP
+Note that careless use of
+.BR prctl ()
+can confuse the userspace run-time environment,
+so these operations should be used with care (if at all).
+.PP
 .BR prctl ()
 is called with a first argument describing what to do
 (with values defined in \fI<linux/prctl.h>\fP), and further

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/

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