Merge tag 'vfs-6.16-rc1.coredump' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs

c5bfc48d · Linus Torvalds <[email protected]> · 2025-05-26 11:17:01 -07:00

Pull coredump updates from Christian Brauner:
 "This adds support for sending coredumps over an AF_UNIX socket. It
  also makes (implicit) use of the new SO_PEERPIDFD ability to hand out
  pidfds for reaped peer tasks

  The new coredump socket will allow userspace to not have to rely on
  usermode helpers for processing coredumps and provides a saf way to
  handle them instead of relying on super privileged coredumping helpers

  This will also be significantly more lightweight since the kernel
  doens't have to do a fork()+exec() for each crashing process to spawn
  a usermodehelper. Instead the kernel just connects to the AF_UNIX
  socket and userspace can process it concurrently however it sees fit.
  Support for userspace is incoming starting with systemd-coredump

  There's more work coming in that direction next cycle. The rest below
  goes into some details and background

  Coredumping currently supports two modes:

   (1) Dumping directly into a file somewhere on the filesystem.

   (2) Dumping into a pipe connected to a usermode helper process
       spawned as a child of the system_unbound_wq or kthreadd

  For simplicity I'm mostly ignoring (1). There's probably still some
  users of (1) out there but processing coredumps in this way can be
  considered adventurous especially in the face of set*id binaries

  The most common option should be (2) by now. It works by allowing
  userspace to put a string into /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern like:

          |/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-coredump %P %u %g %s %t %c %h

  The "|" at the beginning indicates to the kernel that a pipe must be
  used. The path following the pipe indicator is a path to a binary that
  will be spawned as a usermode helper process. Any additional
  parameters pass information about the task that is generating the
  coredump to the binary that processes the coredump

  In the example the core_pattern shown causes the kernel to spawn
  systemd-coredump as a usermode helper. There's various conceptual
  consequences of this (non-exhaustive list):

   - systemd-coredump is spawned with file descriptor number 0 (stdin)
     connected to the read-end of the pipe. All other file descriptors
     are closed. That specifically includes 1 (stdout) and 2 (stderr).

     This has already caused bugs because userspace assumed that this
     cannot happen (Whether or not this is a sane assumption is
     irrelevant)

   - systemd-coredump will be spawned as a child of system_unbound_wq.
     So it is not a child of any userspace process and specifically not
     a child of PID 1. It cannot be waited upon and is in a weird hybrid
     upcall which are difficult for userspace to control correctly

   - systemd-coredump is spawned with full kernel privileges. This
     necessitates all kinds of weird privilege dropping excercises in
     userspace to make this safe

   - A new usermode helper has to be spawned for each crashing process

  This adds a new mode:

   (3) Dumping into an AF_UNIX socket

  Userspace can set /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern to:

          @/path/to/coredump.socket

  The "@" at the beginning indicates to the kernel that an AF_UNIX
  coredump socket will be used to process coredumps

  The coredump socket must be located in the initial mount namespace.
  When a task coredumps it opens a client socket in the initial network
  namespace and connects to the coredump socket:

   - The coredump server uses SO_PEERPIDFD to get a stable handle on the
     connected crashing task. The retrieved pidfd will provide a stable
     reference even if the crashing task gets SIGKILLed while generating
     the coredump. That is a huge attack vector right now

   - By setting core_pipe_limit non-zero userspace can guarantee that
     the crashing task cannot be reaped behind it's back and thus
     process all necessary information in /proc/<pid>. The SO_PEERPIDFD
     can be used to detect whether /proc/<pid> still refers to the same
     process

     The core_pipe_limit isn't used to rate-limit connections to the
     socket. This can simply be done via AF_UNIX socket directly

   - The pidfd for the crashing task will contain information how the
     task coredumps. The PIDFD_GET_INFO ioctl gained a new flag
     PIDFD_INFO_COREDUMP which can be used to retreive the coredump
     information

     If the coredump gets a new coredump client connection the kernel
     guarantees that PIDFD_INFO_COREDUMP information is available.

     Currently the following information is provided in the new
     @coredump_mask extension to struct pidfd_info:

      * PIDFD_COREDUMPED is raised if the task did actually coredump

      * PIDFD_COREDUMP_SKIP is raised if the task skipped coredumping
        (e.g., undumpable)

      * PIDFD_COREDUMP_USER is raised if this is a regular coredump and
        doesn't need special care by the coredump server

      * PIDFD_COREDUMP_ROOT is raised if the generated coredump should
        be treated as sensitive and the coredump server should restrict
        access to the generated coredump to sufficiently privileged
        users"

* tag 'vfs-6.16-rc1.coredump' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs:
  mips, net: ensure that SOCK_COREDUMP is defined
  selftests/coredump: add tests for AF_UNIX coredumps
  selftests/pidfd: add PIDFD_INFO_COREDUMP infrastructure
  coredump: validate socket name as it is written
  coredump: show supported coredump modes
  pidfs, coredump: add PIDFD_INFO_COREDUMP
  coredump: add coredump socket
  coredump: reflow dump helpers a little
  coredump: massage do_coredump()
  coredump: massage format_corename()

Commit

c5bfc48d5472fc60abafb510668d7bc3b5ecb401

Parents

7d7a103d · 4e83ae6e

Merge commit. Changes below are compared with the first parent: 7d7a103d.

Changes

9 files changed · +917 −117