Alexei Starovoitov [off-list ref] writes:

On Thu, Jul 02, 2020 at 11:41:37AM -0500, Eric W. Biederman wrote:

quoted

Create an independent helper thread_group_exited report return true
when all threads have passed exit_notify in do_exit.  AKA all of the
threads are at least zombies and might be dead or completely gone.

Create this helper by taking the logic out of pidfd_poll where
it is already tested, and adding a missing READ_ONCE on
the read of task->exit_state.

I will be changing the user mode driver code to use this same logic
to know when a user mode driver needs to be restarted.

Place the new helper thread_group_exited in kernel/exit.c and
EXPORT it so it can be used by modules.

Signed-off-by: "Eric W. Biederman" <redacted>
---
 include/linux/sched/signal.h |  2 ++
 kernel/exit.c                | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
 kernel/fork.c                |  6 +-----
 3 files changed, 27 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/sched/signal.h b/include/linux/sched/signal.h
index 0ee5e696c5d8..1bad18a1d8ba 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched/signal.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched/signal.h

@@ -674,6 +674,8 @@ static inline int thread_group_empty(struct task_struct *p)
 #define delay_group_leader(p) \
 		(thread_group_leader(p) && !thread_group_empty(p))
 
+extern bool thread_group_exited(struct pid *pid);
+
 extern struct sighand_struct *__lock_task_sighand(struct task_struct *task,
 							unsigned long *flags);
 

diff --git a/kernel/exit.c b/kernel/exit.c
index d3294b611df1..a7f112feb0f6 100644
--- a/kernel/exit.c
+++ b/kernel/exit.c

@@ -1713,6 +1713,30 @@ COMPAT_SYSCALL_DEFINE5(waitid,
 }
 #endif
 
+/**
+ * thread_group_exited - check that a thread group has exited
+ * @pid: tgid of thread group to be checked.
+ *
+ * Test if thread group is has exited (all threads are zombies, dead
+ * or completely gone).
+ *
+ * Return: true if the thread group has exited. false otherwise.
+ */
+bool thread_group_exited(struct pid *pid)
+{
+	struct task_struct *task;
+	bool exited;
+
+	rcu_read_lock();
+	task = pid_task(pid, PIDTYPE_PID);
+	exited = !task ||
+		(READ_ONCE(task->exit_state) && thread_group_empty(task));
+	rcu_read_unlock();
+
+	return exited;
+}

I'm not sure why you think READ_ONCE was missing.
It's different in wait_consider_task() where READ_ONCE is needed because
of multiple checks. Here it's done once.

In practice it probably has no effect on the generated code.  But
READ_ONCE is about telling the compiler not to be clever.  Don't use
tearing loads or stores etc.  When all of the other readers are using
READ_ONCE I just get nervous if we have a case that doesn't.

The rest all looks good to me. Tested with and without bpf_preload patches.
Feel free to create a frozen branch with this set.

Can I have your Tested-by and Acked-by?

btw I'll be offline starting tomorrow for a week.
Will catch up with threads afterwards.

Eric