1unshare system call 2=================== 3 4This document describes the new system call, unshare(). The document 5provides an overview of the feature, why it is needed, how it can 6be used, its interface specification, design, implementation and 7how it can be tested. 8 9Change Log 10---------- 11version 0.1 Initial document, Janak Desai (janak@us.ibm.com), Jan 11, 2006 12 13Contents 14-------- 15 1) Overview 16 2) Benefits 17 3) Cost 18 4) Requirements 19 5) Functional Specification 20 6) High Level Design 21 7) Low Level Design 22 8) Test Specification 23 9) Future Work 24 251) Overview 26----------- 27 28Most legacy operating system kernels support an abstraction of threads 29as multiple execution contexts within a process. These kernels provide 30special resources and mechanisms to maintain these "threads". The Linux 31kernel, in a clever and simple manner, does not make distinction 32between processes and "threads". The kernel allows processes to share 33resources and thus they can achieve legacy "threads" behavior without 34requiring additional data structures and mechanisms in the kernel. The 35power of implementing threads in this manner comes not only from 36its simplicity but also from allowing application programmers to work 37outside the confinement of all-or-nothing shared resources of legacy 38threads. On Linux, at the time of thread creation using the clone system 39call, applications can selectively choose which resources to share 40between threads. 41 42unshare() system call adds a primitive to the Linux thread model that 43allows threads to selectively 'unshare' any resources that were being 44shared at the time of their creation. unshare() was conceptualized by 45Al Viro in the August of 2000, on the Linux-Kernel mailing list, as part 46of the discussion on POSIX threads on Linux. unshare() augments the 47usefulness of Linux threads for applications that would like to control 48shared resources without creating a new process. unshare() is a natural 49addition to the set of available primitives on Linux that implement 50the concept of process/thread as a virtual machine. 51 522) Benefits 53----------- 54 55unshare() would be useful to large application frameworks such as PAM 56where creating a new process to control sharing/unsharing of process 57resources is not possible. Since namespaces are shared by default 58when creating a new process using fork or clone, unshare() can benefit 59even non-threaded applications if they have a need to disassociate 60from default shared namespace. The following lists two use-cases 61where unshare() can be used. 62 632.1 Per-security context namespaces 64~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 65 66unshare() can be used to implement polyinstantiated directories using 67the kernel's per-process namespace mechanism. Polyinstantiated directories, 68such as per-user and/or per-security context instance of /tmp, /var/tmp or 69per-security context instance of a user's home directory, isolate user 70processes when working with these directories. Using unshare(), a PAM 71module can easily setup a private namespace for a user at login. 72Polyinstantiated directories are required for Common Criteria certification 73with Labeled System Protection Profile, however, with the availability 74of shared-tree feature in the Linux kernel, even regular Linux systems 75can benefit from setting up private namespaces at login and 76polyinstantiating /tmp, /var/tmp and other directories deemed 77appropriate by system administrators. 78 792.2 unsharing of virtual memory and/or open files 80~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 81 82Consider a client/server application where the server is processing 83client requests by creating processes that share resources such as 84virtual memory and open files. Without unshare(), the server has to 85decide what needs to be shared at the time of creating the process 86which services the request. unshare() allows the server an ability to 87disassociate parts of the context during the servicing of the 88request. For large and complex middleware application frameworks, this 89ability to unshare() after the process was created can be very 90useful. 91 923) Cost 93------- 94 95In order to not duplicate code and to handle the fact that unshare() 96works on an active task (as opposed to clone/fork working on a newly 97allocated inactive task) unshare() had to make minor reorganizational 98changes to copy_* functions utilized by clone/fork system call. 99There is a cost associated with altering existing, well tested and 100stable code to implement a new feature that may not get exercised 101extensively in the beginning. However, with proper design and code 102review of the changes and creation of an unshare() test for the LTP 103the benefits of this new feature can exceed its cost. 104 1054) Requirements 106--------------- 107 108unshare() reverses sharing that was done using clone(2) system call, 109so unshare() should have a similar interface as clone(2). That is, 110since flags in clone(int flags, void \*stack) specifies what should 111be shared, similar flags in unshare(int flags) should specify 112what should be unshared. Unfortunately, this may appear to invert 113the meaning of the flags from the way they are used in clone(2). 114However, there was no easy solution that was less confusing and that 115allowed incremental context unsharing in future without an ABI change. 116 117unshare() interface should accommodate possible future addition of 118new context flags without requiring a rebuild of old applications. 119If and when new context flags are added, unshare() design should allow 120incremental unsharing of those resources on an as needed basis. 121 1225) Functional Specification 123--------------------------- 124 125NAME 126 unshare - disassociate parts of the process execution context 127 128SYNOPSIS 129 #include <sched.h> 130 131 int unshare(int flags); 132 133DESCRIPTION 134 unshare() allows a process to disassociate parts of its execution 135 context that are currently being shared with other processes. Part 136 of execution context, such as the namespace, is shared by default 137 when a new process is created using fork(2), while other parts, 138 such as the virtual memory, open file descriptors, etc, may be 139 shared by explicit request to share them when creating a process 140 using clone(2). 141 142 The main use of unshare() is to allow a process to control its 143 shared execution context without creating a new process. 144 145 The flags argument specifies one or bitwise-or'ed of several of 146 the following constants. 147 148 CLONE_FS 149 If CLONE_FS is set, file system information of the caller 150 is disassociated from the shared file system information. 151 152 CLONE_FILES 153 If CLONE_FILES is set, the file descriptor table of the 154 caller is disassociated from the shared file descriptor 155 table. 156 157 CLONE_NEWNS 158 If CLONE_NEWNS is set, the namespace of the caller is 159 disassociated from the shared namespace. 160 161 CLONE_VM 162 If CLONE_VM is set, the virtual memory of the caller is 163 disassociated from the shared virtual memory. 164 165RETURN VALUE 166 On success, zero returned. On failure, -1 is returned and errno is 167 168ERRORS 169 EPERM CLONE_NEWNS was specified by a non-root process (process 170 without CAP_SYS_ADMIN). 171 172 ENOMEM Cannot allocate sufficient memory to copy parts of caller's 173 context that need to be unshared. 174 175 EINVAL Invalid flag was specified as an argument. 176 177CONFORMING TO 178 The unshare() call is Linux-specific and should not be used 179 in programs intended to be portable. 180 181SEE ALSO 182 clone(2), fork(2) 183 1846) High Level Design 185-------------------- 186 187Depending on the flags argument, the unshare() system call allocates 188appropriate process context structures, populates it with values from 189the current shared version, associates newly duplicated structures 190with the current task structure and releases corresponding shared 191versions. Helper functions of clone (copy_*) could not be used 192directly by unshare() because of the following two reasons. 193 194 1) clone operates on a newly allocated not-yet-active task 195 structure, where as unshare() operates on the current active 196 task. Therefore unshare() has to take appropriate task_lock() 197 before associating newly duplicated context structures 198 199 2) unshare() has to allocate and duplicate all context structures 200 that are being unshared, before associating them with the 201 current task and releasing older shared structures. Failure 202 do so will create race conditions and/or oops when trying 203 to backout due to an error. Consider the case of unsharing 204 both virtual memory and namespace. After successfully unsharing 205 vm, if the system call encounters an error while allocating 206 new namespace structure, the error return code will have to 207 reverse the unsharing of vm. As part of the reversal the 208 system call will have to go back to older, shared, vm 209 structure, which may not exist anymore. 210 211Therefore code from copy_* functions that allocated and duplicated 212current context structure was moved into new dup_* functions. Now, 213copy_* functions call dup_* functions to allocate and duplicate 214appropriate context structures and then associate them with the 215task structure that is being constructed. unshare() system call on 216the other hand performs the following: 217 218 1) Check flags to force missing, but implied, flags 219 220 2) For each context structure, call the corresponding unshare() 221 helper function to allocate and duplicate a new context 222 structure, if the appropriate bit is set in the flags argument. 223 224 3) If there is no error in allocation and duplication and there 225 are new context structures then lock the current task structure, 226 associate new context structures with the current task structure, 227 and release the lock on the current task structure. 228 229 4) Appropriately release older, shared, context structures. 230 2317) Low Level Design 232------------------- 233 234Implementation of unshare() can be grouped in the following 4 different 235items: 236 237 a) Reorganization of existing copy_* functions 238 239 b) unshare() system call service function 240 241 c) unshare() helper functions for each different process context 242 243 d) Registration of system call number for different architectures 244 2457.1) Reorganization of copy_* functions 246~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 247 248Each copy function such as copy_mm, copy_namespace, copy_files, 249etc, had roughly two components. The first component allocated 250and duplicated the appropriate structure and the second component 251linked it to the task structure passed in as an argument to the copy 252function. The first component was split into its own function. 253These dup_* functions allocated and duplicated the appropriate 254context structure. The reorganized copy_* functions invoked 255their corresponding dup_* functions and then linked the newly 256duplicated structures to the task structure with which the 257copy function was called. 258 2597.2) unshare() system call service function 260~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 261 262 * Check flags 263 Force implied flags. If CLONE_THREAD is set force CLONE_VM. 264 If CLONE_VM is set, force CLONE_SIGHAND. If CLONE_SIGHAND is 265 set and signals are also being shared, force CLONE_THREAD. If 266 CLONE_NEWNS is set, force CLONE_FS. 267 268 * For each context flag, invoke the corresponding unshare_* 269 helper routine with flags passed into the system call and a 270 reference to pointer pointing the new unshared structure 271 272 * If any new structures are created by unshare_* helper 273 functions, take the task_lock() on the current task, 274 modify appropriate context pointers, and release the 275 task lock. 276 277 * For all newly unshared structures, release the corresponding 278 older, shared, structures. 279 2807.3) unshare_* helper functions 281~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 282 283For unshare_* helpers corresponding to CLONE_SYSVSEM, CLONE_SIGHAND, 284and CLONE_THREAD, return -EINVAL since they are not implemented yet. 285For others, check the flag value to see if the unsharing is 286required for that structure. If it is, invoke the corresponding 287dup_* function to allocate and duplicate the structure and return 288a pointer to it. 289 2907.4) Finally 291~~~~~~~~~~~~ 292 293Appropriately modify architecture specific code to register the 294new system call. 295 2968) Test Specification 297--------------------- 298 299The test for unshare() should test the following: 300 301 1) Valid flags: Test to check that clone flags for signal and 302 signal handlers, for which unsharing is not implemented 303 yet, return -EINVAL. 304 305 2) Missing/implied flags: Test to make sure that if unsharing 306 namespace without specifying unsharing of filesystem, correctly 307 unshares both namespace and filesystem information. 308 309 3) For each of the four (namespace, filesystem, files and vm) 310 supported unsharing, verify that the system call correctly 311 unshares the appropriate structure. Verify that unsharing 312 them individually as well as in combination with each 313 other works as expected. 314 315 4) Concurrent execution: Use shared memory segments and futex on 316 an address in the shm segment to synchronize execution of 317 about 10 threads. Have a couple of threads execute execve, 318 a couple _exit and the rest unshare with different combination 319 of flags. Verify that unsharing is performed as expected and 320 that there are no oops or hangs. 321 3229) Future Work 323-------------- 324 325The current implementation of unshare() does not allow unsharing of 326signals and signal handlers. Signals are complex to begin with and 327to unshare signals and/or signal handlers of a currently running 328process is even more complex. If in the future there is a specific 329need to allow unsharing of signals and/or signal handlers, it can 330be incrementally added to unshare() without affecting legacy 331applications using unshare(). 332 333