Messages in this thread | | | From | Andy Lutomirski <> | Date | Tue, 10 Sep 2019 09:56:53 -0700 | Subject | Re: [RFC] Add critical process prctl |
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On Wed, Sep 4, 2019 at 5:53 PM Daniel Colascione <dancol@google.com> wrote: > > A task with CAP_SYS_ADMIN can mark itself PR_SET_TASK_CRITICAL, > meaning that if the task ever exits, the kernel panics. This facility > is intended for use by low-level core system processes that cannot > gracefully restart without a reboot. This prctl allows these processes > to ensure that the system restarts when they die regardless of whether > the rest of userspace is operational.
The kind of panic produced by init crashing is awful -- logs don't get written, etc. I'm wondering if you would be better off with a new watchdog-like device that, when closed, kills the system in a configurable way (e.g. after a certain amount of time, while still logging something and having a decent chance of getting the logs written out.) This could plausibly even be an extension to the existing /dev/watchdog API.
--Andy
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