pipe: cap initial pipe capacity according to pipe-max-size limit
authorMichael Kerrisk (man-pages) <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Tue, 11 Oct 2016 20:53:43 +0000 (13:53 -0700)
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Tue, 11 Oct 2016 22:06:32 +0000 (15:06 -0700)
commit086e774a57fba4695f14383c0818994c0b31da7c
treec8c9ced5e9fca1f95ba2caedd08278da10fa3aae
parent9c87bcf0a31b338dc8a69a5d251a037565a94e13
pipe: cap initial pipe capacity according to pipe-max-size limit

This is a patch that provides behavior that is more consistent, and
probably less surprising to users. I consider the change optional, and
welcome opinions about whether it should be applied.

By default, pipes are created with a capacity of 64 kiB.  However,
/proc/sys/fs/pipe-max-size may be set smaller than this value.  In this
scenario, an unprivileged user could thus create a pipe whose initial
capacity exceeds the limit. Therefore, it seems logical to cap the
initial pipe capacity according to the value of pipe-max-size.

The test program shown earlier in this patch series can be used to
demonstrate the effect of the change brought about with this patch:

    # cat /proc/sys/fs/pipe-max-size
    1048576
    # sudo -u mtk ./test_F_SETPIPE_SZ 1
    Initial pipe capacity: 65536
    # echo 10000 > /proc/sys/fs/pipe-max-size
    # cat /proc/sys/fs/pipe-max-size
    16384
    # sudo -u mtk ./test_F_SETPIPE_SZ 1
    Initial pipe capacity: 16384
    # ./test_F_SETPIPE_SZ 1
    Initial pipe capacity: 65536

The last two executions of 'test_F_SETPIPE_SZ' show that pipe-max-size
caps the initial allocation for a new pipe for unprivileged users, but
not for privileged users.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/31dc7064-2a17-9c5b-1df1-4e3012ee992c@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@oracle.com>
Cc: Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>
Cc: <socketpair@gmail.com>
Cc: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
fs/pipe.c