Re: Userspace regression in LTS and stable kernels

[Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>]

On Fri 15-02-19 10:20:13, Greg KH wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 10:10:00AM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > On Fri 15-02-19 08:00:22, Greg KH wrote:
> > > On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 12:20:27PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 14 Feb 2019 09:56:46 -0800 Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 3:37 PM Richard Weinberger
> > > > > <richard.weinberger@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Your shebang line exceeds BINPRM_BUF_SIZE.
> > > > > > Before the said commit the kernel silently truncated the shebang line
> > > > > > (and corrupted it),
> > > > > > now it tells the user that the line is too long.
> > > > > 
> > > > > It doesn't matter if it "corrupted" things by truncating it. All that
> > > > > matters is "it used to work, now it doesn't"
> > > > > 
> > > > > Yes, maybe it never *should* have worked. And yes, it's sad that
> > > > > people apparently had cases that depended on this odd behavior, but
> > > > > there we are.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I see that Kees has a patch to fix it up.
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Greg, I think we have a problem here.
> > > > 
> > > > 8099b047ecc431518 ("exec: load_script: don't blindly truncate shebang
> > > > string") wasn't marked for backporting.  And, presumably as a
> > > > consequence, Kees's fix "exec: load_script: allow interpreter argument
> > > > truncation" was not marked for backporting.
> > > > 
> > > > 8099b047ecc431518 hasn't even appeared in a Linus released kernel, yet
> > > > it is now present in 4.9.x, 4.14.x, 4.19.x and 4.20.x.
> > > 
> > > It came in 5.0-rc1, so it fits the "in a Linus released kernel"
> > > requirement.  If we are to wait until it shows up in a -final, that
> > > would be months too late for almost all of these types of patches that
> > > are picked up.
> > 
> > rc1 is just a too early. Waiting few more rcs or even a final release
> > for something that people do not see as an issue should be just fine.
> > Consider this particular patch and tell me why it had to be rushed in
> > the first place. The original code was broken for _years_ but I do not
> > remember anybody would be complaining.
> 
> This patch was in 4.20.10, which was released on Feb 12 while 5.0-rc1
> came out on Jan 6.  Over a month delay.

Obviously not long enough.

> > > > I don't know if Oleg considered backporting that patch.  I certainly
> > > > did (I always do), and I decided against doing so.  Yet there it is.
> > > 
> > > This came in through Sasha's tools, which give people a week or so to
> > > say "hey, this isn't a stable patch!" and it seems everyone ignored that
> > > :(
> > 
> > I thought we were through this already. Automagic autoselection of
> > patches in the core kernel (or mmotm tree patches in particular) is too
> > dangerous. We try hard to consider each and every patch for stable. Even
> > if something slips through then it is much more preferred to ask for a
> > stable backport in the respective email thread and wait for a conclusion
> > before adding it.
> 
> We have a list of blacklisted files/subsystems for people that do not
> want this to happen to their area of the kernel.  The patch seemed to
> make sense, and it passed all known tests that we currently have.

Yes, the patch makes sense (I wouldn't give my acked-by otherwise). But
this is one of the area where things that make sense might still break
because it is hard to assume what userspace depends on.

> Sometimes things will slip through like this, it happens.  And really, a
> 3 day turn-around-time to resolve this is pretty good, don't you think?

Yes, but that doesn't make any difference on the fact that this was not
marked for stable and I still think this is not a stable material - at
least not at this moment.

> It also seems like we need another test to catch this problem from ever
> happening again :)

Agreed on this.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs