Re: [PATCH v2 0/2] mm,fork,security: introduce MADV_WIPEONFORK

[Rik van Riel]

On Mon, 2017-08-07 at 15:46 +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Mon 07-08-17 15:22:57, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > This is an user visible API so make sure you CC linux-api (added)
> > 
> > On Sun 06-08-17 10:04:23, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > > 
> > > A further complication is the proliferation of clone flags,
> > > programs bypassing glibc's functions to call clone directly,
> > > and programs calling unshare, causing the glibc pthread_atfork
> > > hook to not get called.
> > > 
> > > It would be better to have the kernel take care of this
> > > automatically.
> > > 
> > > This is similar to the OpenBSD minherit syscall with
> > > MAP_INHERIT_ZERO:
> > > 
> > > ÂÂÂÂhttps://man.openbsd.org/minherit.2
> 
> I would argue that a MAP_$FOO flag would be more appropriate. Or do
> you
> see any cases where such a special mapping would need to change the
> semantic and inherit the content over the fork again?
> 
> I do not like the madvise because it is an advise and as such it can
> be
> ignored/not implemented and that shouldn't have any correctness
> effects
> on the child process.

Too late for that. VM_DONTFORK is already implemented
through MADV_DONTFORK & MADV_DOFORK, in a way that is
very similar to the MADV_WIPEONFORK from these patches.

I wonder if that was done because MAP_* flags are a
bitmap, with a very limited number of values as a result,
while MADV_* constants have an essentially unlimited
numerical namespace available.