Bug 1035433 - strace users are getting confused by PID namespaces
Summary: strace users are getting confused by PID namespaces
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: strace
Version: rawhide
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Eugene Syromiatnikov
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2013-11-27 18:35 UTC by Daniel Berrangé
Modified: 2020-10-23 22:05 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

Fixed In Version: strace-5.9-1.fc33 strace-5.9-1.fc32 strace-5.9-1.fc31
Doc Type: Enhancement
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
: 1035434 (view as bug list)
Environment:
Last Closed: 2020-10-09 16:14:06 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Daniel Berrangé 2013-11-27 18:35:43 UTC
Description of problem:
When using strace to debug an LXC problem I noticed that it gets a bit confused by PID namespaces.

I am running strace from host context, so I expect all PIDs it reports to be host PIDs. When strace creates new log files (due to the -ff CLI option) it names them based on the host PIDs, which is good. Inside these log files though the clone() syscalls are reporting container PIDs which is bad. This means you can't correlate the clone() syscalls  with the log files strace is creating.

If running strace from inside container context it correctly uses container PIDs in both places.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
strace-4.8-1.fc19.x86_64
kernel-3.11.9-200.fc19.x86_64

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. From the host run

# strace -f -ff -o s.log unshare --pid -- /bin/sh

and at the shell prompt execute '/bin/sh' again. Then do it again. And again.. Then exit back to the host context

You should now have several log files
 

Actual results:
# ls s.log.*
s.log.9851  s.log.9860  s.log.9861  s.log.9862
# grep clone s.log.98*
s.log.9851:clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fe81e7b6a10) = 9860
s.log.9860:clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7f47d93aca10) = 2
s.log.9861:clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7f9962d34a10) = 3


Expected results:
# ls s.log.*
s.log.9851  s.log.9860  s.log.9861  s.log.9862
# grep clone s.log.98*
s.log.9851:clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fe81e7b6a10) = 9860
s.log.9860:clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7f47d93aca10) = 9861
s.log.9861:clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7f9962d34a10) = 9862


Additional info:

Comment 1 Fedora End Of Life 2015-01-09 20:42:57 UTC
This message is a notice that Fedora 19 is now at end of life. Fedora 
has stopped maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 19. It is 
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Comment 2 Fedora End Of Life 2015-02-17 19:25:56 UTC
Fedora 19 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2015-01-06. Fedora 19 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
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Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.

Comment 3 Dmitry V. Levin 2017-03-08 12:41:43 UTC
(In reply to Daniel Berrange from comment #0)
> I am running strace from host context, so I expect all PIDs it reports to be
> host PIDs.

To be honest, I don't understand why do you have such expectations.
strace traditionally prints these numbers as they are written by the kernel and seen in userspace.  Even if such a translation from tracee namespace to strace namespace was possible, wouldn't it be an additional source of confusion?

If implemented, I wouldn't enable any pid/uid/whatever namespace translation by default.

Comment 4 Daniel Berrangé 2017-05-15 12:55:35 UTC
(In reply to Dmitry V. Levin from comment #3)
> (In reply to Daniel Berrange from comment #0)
> > I am running strace from host context, so I expect all PIDs it reports to be
> > host PIDs.
> 
> To be honest, I don't understand why do you have such expectations.
> strace traditionally prints these numbers as they are written by the kernel
> and seen in userspace.  Even if such a translation from tracee namespace to
> strace namespace was possible, wouldn't it be an additional source of
> confusion?
> 
> If implemented, I wouldn't enable any pid/uid/whatever namespace translation
> by default.

Well as I said, my strace binary is in the host namespace, so I expect data it prints to be related to the host namespace. This lets me then use that PID with other tools also running from that same shell session in the host namespace. There's no indication that the PID it prints is from the child namespace, so that is confusing as is and not helpeful when trying to correlate with data seen from other debugging tools in that host session.

If I were running strace binary inside the child namespace, then i'd expect data it prints to be related to this child namespace, so it matches data from other tools run in that child namespace.

Comment 5 Eugene Syromiatnikov 2017-08-06 19:37:53 UTC
(In reply to Daniel Berrange from comment #4)
> Well as I said, my strace binary is in the host namespace, so I expect data
> it prints to be related to the host namespace. This lets me then use that
> PID with other tools also running from that same shell session in the host
> namespace. There's no indication that the PID it prints is from the child
> namespace, so that is confusing as is and not helpeful when trying to
> correlate with data seen from other debugging tools in that host session.
> 
> If I were running strace binary inside the child namespace, then i'd expect
> data it prints to be related to this child namespace, so it matches data
> from other tools run in that child namespace.

Should the same apply for other kinds of namespaces (user, chroot)?

Do you have an idea how to retrieve such information? As I understood, one should construct the hierarchy of PID namespaces (using the technique similar to described in [1]) in order to interpret the values in /proc/pid/status, and then scan all /proc/pid/status files (assuming that it is mounted by a process with the same PID namespace as strace has) in order to find the required PID in the required PID NS, is that correct? And this information can't be cached, as it may change between calls, right?

[1] http://blog.man7.org/2016/12/introspecting-namespace-relationships.html

Comment 6 Fedora Update System 2020-10-08 13:19:33 UTC
FEDORA-2020-630310d1cb has been submitted as an update to Fedora 33. https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2020-630310d1cb

Comment 7 Fedora Update System 2020-10-08 13:20:05 UTC
FEDORA-2020-c36a7dcfbc has been submitted as an update to Fedora 31. https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2020-c36a7dcfbc

Comment 8 Fedora Update System 2020-10-08 13:20:23 UTC
FEDORA-2020-bf724fd128 has been submitted as an update to Fedora 32. https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2020-bf724fd128

Comment 9 Fedora Update System 2020-10-09 16:14:06 UTC
FEDORA-2020-bf724fd128 has been pushed to the Fedora 32 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 10 Fedora Update System 2020-10-15 14:42:40 UTC
FEDORA-2020-c36a7dcfbc has been pushed to the Fedora 31 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 11 Fedora Update System 2020-10-23 22:05:19 UTC
FEDORA-2020-630310d1cb has been pushed to the Fedora 33 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.


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