Ouch... Looks like vps_dumpable flag should be moved to task_struct
to fix it properly...

Your fix is incorrect for a number of reasons:
1. it introduces a race: in do_exit() task first looses it's mm, only then
   it's exit_state is set to EXIT_ZOMBIE, so there is still a window when it will
   return EACCESS.
2. It's illogical, since the idea was to protect tasks which
   did VE_ENTER from looking at them in some proc files and ptrace.
   You open this barrier allowing to investigate state of zombie
   such entered process.

So I think we simply have to move vps_dumpable flag to task_struct...
As a temporary workaround you can simply drop this check in your kernel
for some time until we fixed it.

Thanks,
Kirill

Ivan Dubrov wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Please ignore my previous mail.
> 
> I was investigating why stat on /proc/<PID>/exe fails with EACCES when 
> <PID> is zombie. In short, this situation is quite often then starting 
> services on openSUSE 10.3 VE (startproc does stat on its children for 
> some reason and sometimes this children is already zombie). That results 
> in multiple "startproc: cannot stat /proc/1128/exe: Permission denied" 
> when starting the service.
> 
> So, I've traced down the source of this error and found that it occurs 
> in kernel/ptrace.c may_attach() function. If process is zombie, it has 
> empty task->mm, so vps_dumpable is 0 for such process. As a result, if 
> VE is not a super VE, the check fails.
> 
> Here is the corresponding piece of code (may_attach.c, around .. line):
> 
> if (task->mm) {
>   dumpable = task->mm->dumpable;
>   vps_dumpable = (task->mm->vps_dumpable == 1);
> }
> 
> if (!dumpable && !capable(CAP_SYS_PTRACE)) // #1
>   return -EPERM;
> if (!vps_dumpable && !ve_is_super(get_exec_env())) // This check fails 
> if process is zombie
>   return -EPERM;
> 
> 
> The questions here is it safe to allow the "ptrace" if process is 
> zombie? It seems to me that this should be perfectly safe. Anyway, the 
> actual ptrace_attach will fail on task with empty mm, so this only 
> affects /proc behavior.
> 
> On the other hand, maybe this is a startproc issue and not the kernel 
> one? It seems that in regular environment it works only because it is 
> usually executed under "root" account which has CAP_SYS_PTRACE 
> capability and therefore check #1 fails for zombies.
> 
> I've attached a patch that fixes startproc. It skips the check if 
> (task->exit_state&EXIT_ZOMBIE) is true.
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> --- linux-2.6.22.orig/kernel/ptrace.c	2008-01-12 20:25:24.000000000 +0600
> +++ linux-2.6.22/kernel/ptrace.c	2008-01-12 20:25:58.000000000 +0600
> @@ -151,7 +151,8 @@
>  
>  	if (!dumpable && !capable(CAP_SYS_PTRACE))
>  		return -EPERM;
> -	if (!vps_dumpable && !ve_is_super(get_exec_env()))
> +	if (!vps_dumpable && !ve_is_super(get_exec_env())
> +			&& !(task->exit_state & EXIT_ZOMBIE))
>  		return -EPERM;
>  	if (!ve_accessible(VE_TASK_INFO(task)->owner_env, get_exec_env()))
>  		return -EPERM;
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>