xref: /qemu/include/user/safe-syscall.h (revision e4e5cb4a)
1 /*
2  * safe-syscall.h: prototypes for linux-user signal-race-safe syscalls
3  *
4  *  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
5  *  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
6  *  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
7  *  (at your option) any later version.
8  *
9  *  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
10  *  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
11  *  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
12  *  GNU General Public License for more details.
13  *
14  *  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
15  *  along with this program; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
16  */
17 
18 #ifndef LINUX_USER_SAFE_SYSCALL_H
19 #define LINUX_USER_SAFE_SYSCALL_H
20 
21 /**
22  * safe_syscall:
23  * @int number: number of system call to make
24  * ...: arguments to the system call
25  *
26  * Call a system call if guest signal not pending.
27  * This has the same API as the libc syscall() function, except that it
28  * may return -1 with errno == QEMU_ERESTARTSYS if a signal was pending.
29  *
30  * Returns: the system call result, or -1 with an error code in errno
31  * (Errnos are host errnos; we rely on QEMU_ERESTARTSYS not clashing
32  * with any of the host errno values.)
33  */
34 
35 /*
36  * A guide to using safe_syscall() to handle interactions between guest
37  * syscalls and guest signals:
38  *
39  * Guest syscalls come in two flavours:
40  *
41  * (1) Non-interruptible syscalls
42  *
43  * These are guest syscalls that never get interrupted by signals and
44  * so never return EINTR. They can be implemented straightforwardly in
45  * QEMU: just make sure that if the implementation code has to make any
46  * blocking calls that those calls are retried if they return EINTR.
47  * It's also OK to implement these with safe_syscall, though it will be
48  * a little less efficient if a signal is delivered at the 'wrong' moment.
49  *
50  * Some non-interruptible syscalls need to be handled using block_signals()
51  * to block signals for the duration of the syscall. This mainly applies
52  * to code which needs to modify the data structures used by the
53  * host_signal_handler() function and the functions it calls, including
54  * all syscalls which change the thread's signal mask.
55  *
56  * (2) Interruptible syscalls
57  *
58  * These are guest syscalls that can be interrupted by signals and
59  * for which we need to either return EINTR or arrange for the guest
60  * syscall to be restarted. This category includes both syscalls which
61  * always restart (and in the kernel return -ERESTARTNOINTR), ones
62  * which only restart if there is no handler (kernel returns -ERESTARTNOHAND
63  * or -ERESTART_RESTARTBLOCK), and the most common kind which restart
64  * if the handler was registered with SA_RESTART (kernel returns
65  * -ERESTARTSYS). System calls which are only interruptible in some
66  * situations (like 'open') also need to be handled this way.
67  *
68  * Here it is important that the host syscall is made
69  * via this safe_syscall() function, and *not* via the host libc.
70  * If the host libc is used then the implementation will appear to work
71  * most of the time, but there will be a race condition where a
72  * signal could arrive just before we make the host syscall inside libc,
73  * and then the guest syscall will not correctly be interrupted.
74  * Instead the implementation of the guest syscall can use the safe_syscall
75  * function but otherwise just return the result or errno in the usual
76  * way; the main loop code will take care of restarting the syscall
77  * if appropriate.
78  *
79  * (If the implementation needs to make multiple host syscalls this is
80  * OK; any which might really block must be via safe_syscall(); for those
81  * which are only technically blocking (ie which we know in practice won't
82  * stay in the host kernel indefinitely) it's OK to use libc if necessary.
83  * You must be able to cope with backing out correctly if some safe_syscall
84  * you make in the implementation returns either -QEMU_ERESTARTSYS or
85  * EINTR though.)
86  *
87  * block_signals() cannot be used for interruptible syscalls.
88  *
89  *
90  * How and why the safe_syscall implementation works:
91  *
92  * The basic setup is that we make the host syscall via a known
93  * section of host native assembly. If a signal occurs, our signal
94  * handler checks the interrupted host PC against the address of that
95  * known section. If the PC is before or at the address of the syscall
96  * instruction then we change the PC to point at a "return
97  * -QEMU_ERESTARTSYS" code path instead, and then exit the signal handler
98  * (causing the safe_syscall() call to immediately return that value).
99  * Then in the main.c loop if we see this magic return value we adjust
100  * the guest PC to wind it back to before the system call, and invoke
101  * the guest signal handler as usual.
102  *
103  * This winding-back will happen in two cases:
104  * (1) signal came in just before we took the host syscall (a race);
105  *   in this case we'll take the guest signal and have another go
106  *   at the syscall afterwards, and this is indistinguishable for the
107  *   guest from the timing having been different such that the guest
108  *   signal really did win the race
109  * (2) signal came in while the host syscall was blocking, and the
110  *   host kernel decided the syscall should be restarted;
111  *   in this case we want to restart the guest syscall also, and so
112  *   rewinding is the right thing. (Note that "restart" semantics mean
113  *   "first call the signal handler, then reattempt the syscall".)
114  * The other situation to consider is when a signal came in while the
115  * host syscall was blocking, and the host kernel decided that the syscall
116  * should not be restarted; in this case QEMU's host signal handler will
117  * be invoked with the PC pointing just after the syscall instruction,
118  * with registers indicating an EINTR return; the special code in the
119  * handler will not kick in, and we will return EINTR to the guest as
120  * we should.
121  *
122  * Notice that we can leave the host kernel to make the decision for
123  * us about whether to do a restart of the syscall or not; we do not
124  * need to check SA_RESTART flags in QEMU or distinguish the various
125  * kinds of restartability.
126  */
127 
128 /* The core part of this function is implemented in assembly */
129 long safe_syscall_base(int *pending, long number, ...);
130 long safe_syscall_set_errno_tail(int value);
131 
132 /* These are defined by the safe-syscall.inc.S file */
133 extern char safe_syscall_start[];
134 extern char safe_syscall_end[];
135 
136 #define safe_syscall(...)                                                 \
137     safe_syscall_base(&get_task_state(thread_cpu)->signal_pending,        \
138                       __VA_ARGS__)
139 
140 #endif
141