From a293980c2e261bd5b0d2a77340dd04f684caff58 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Horman Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:56:56 -0700 Subject: exec: let do_coredump() limit the number of concurrent dumps to pipes Introduce core pipe limiting sysctl. Since we can dump cores to pipe, rather than directly to the filesystem, we create a condition in which a user can create a very high load on the system simply by running bad applications. If the pipe reader specified in core_pattern is poorly written, we can have lots of ourstandig resources and processes in the system. This sysctl introduces an ability to limit that resource consumption. core_pipe_limit defines how many in-flight dumps may be run in parallel, dumps beyond this value are skipped and a note is made in the kernel log. A special value of 0 in core_pipe_limit denotes unlimited core dumps may be handled (this is the default value). [akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style fixes] Signed-off-by: Neil Horman Reported-by: Earl Chew Cc: Oleg Nesterov Cc: Andi Kleen Cc: Alan Cox Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds --- Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt | 22 ++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 22 insertions(+) (limited to 'Documentation/sysctl') diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt index b3d8b4922740..a028b92001ed 100644 --- a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt +++ b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt @@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ show up in /proc/sys/kernel: - callhome [ S390 only ] - auto_msgmni - core_pattern +- core_pipe_limit - core_uses_pid - ctrl-alt-del - dentry-state @@ -135,6 +136,27 @@ core_pattern is used to specify a core dumpfile pattern name. ============================================================== +core_pipe_limit: + +This sysctl is only applicable when core_pattern is configured to pipe core +files to user space helper a (when the first character of core_pattern is a '|', +see above). When collecting cores via a pipe to an application, it is +occasionally usefull for the collecting application to gather data about the +crashing process from its /proc/pid directory. In order to do this safely, the +kernel must wait for the collecting process to exit, so as not to remove the +crashing processes proc files prematurely. This in turn creates the possibility +that a misbehaving userspace collecting process can block the reaping of a +crashed process simply by never exiting. This sysctl defends against that. It +defines how many concurrent crashing processes may be piped to user space +applications in parallel. If this value is exceeded, then those crashing +processes above that value are noted via the kernel log and their cores are +skipped. 0 is a special value, indicating that unlimited processes may be +captured in parallel, but that no waiting will take place (i.e. the collecting +process is not guaranteed access to /proc//). This value defaults +to 0. + +============================================================== + core_uses_pid: The default coredump filename is "core". By setting -- cgit v1.2.3