Resource management:

Linux kernel Namespaces and

cgroups

Rami Rosen
[email protected]
Haifux, May 2013
www.haifux.org
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 TOC
Network Namespace

PID namespaces

UTS namespace
Mount namespace

user namespaces
cgroups
Mounting cgroups

links
Note: All code examples are from for_3_10 branch of cgroup git tree (3.9.0-rc1, April 2013)

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 General
The presentation deals with two Linux process resource
management solutions: namespaces and cgroups.

We will look at:

● Kernel Implementation details.

●what was added/changed in brief.

● User space interface.

● Some working examples.

● Usage of namespaces and cgroups in other projects.

● Is process virtualization indeed lightweight comparing to Os

virtualization ?
●Comparing to VMWare/qemu/scaleMP or even to Xen/KVM.

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 Namespaces
● Namespaces - lightweight process virtualization.
– Isolation: Enable a process (or several processes) to have different
views of the system than other processes.
– 1992: “The Use of Name Spaces in Plan 9”
– http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/names.html
●
Rob Pike et al, ACM SIGOPS European Workshop 1992.

– Much like Zones in Solaris.

– No hypervisor layer (as in OS virtualization like KVM, Xen)
– Only one system call was added (setns())
– Used in Checkpoint/Restart
● Developers: Eric W. Biederman, Pavel Emelyanov, Al Viro, Cyrill Gorcunov, more.

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 Namespaces - contd
There are currently 6 namespaces:
● mnt (mount points, filesystems)
● pid (processes)
● net (network stack)
● ipc (System V IPC)
● uts (hostname)
● user (UIDs)

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 Namespaces - contd
It was intended that there will be 10 namespaces: the following 4
namespaces are not implemented (yet):
● security namespace
● security keys namespace
● device namespace
● time namespace.
– There was a time namespace patch – but it was not applied.
– See: PATCH 0/4 - Time virtualization:
– http://lwn.net/Articles/179825/
● see ols2006, "Multiple Instances of the Global Linux Namespaces" Eric
W. Biederman

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 Namespaces - contd
● Mount namespaces were the first type of namespace to be
implemented on Linux by Al Viro, appearing in 2002.
– Linux 2.4.19.
● CLONE_NEWNS flag was added (stands for “new namespace”; at
that time, no other namespace was planned, so it was not called
new mount...)
● User namespace was the last to be implemented. A number of Linux
filesystems are not yet user-namespace aware

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 Implementation details

●Implementation (partial):
- 6 CLONE_NEW * flags were added:
(include/linux/sched.h)

● These flags (or a combination of them) can be

used in clone() or unshare() syscalls to create a
namespace.
●In setns(), the flags are optional.

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CLONE_NEWNS 2.4.19 CAP_SYS_ADMIN

CLONE_NEWUTS 2.6.19 CAP_SYS_ADMIN

CLONE_NEWIPC 2.6.19 CAP_SYS_ADMIN

CLONE_NEWPID 2.6.24 CAP_SYS_ADMIN

CLONE_NEWNET 2.6.29 CAP_SYS_ADMIN

CLONE_NEWUSER 3.8 No capability is required

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 Implementation - contd
● Three system calls are used for namespaces:
● clone() - creates a new process and a new namespace; the
process is attached to the new namespace.
– Process creation and process termination methods, fork() and exit() methods,
were patched to handle the new namespace CLONE_NEW* flags.
●
unshare() - does not create a new process; creates a new
namespace and attaches the current process to it.
– unshare() was added in 2005, but not for namespaces only, but also for security.
see “new system call, unshare” : http://lwn.net/Articles/135266/

● setns() - a new system call was added, for joining an existing

namespace.

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 Nameless namespaces
From man (2) clone:
...
int clone(int (*fn)(void *), void *child_stack,
int flags, void *arg, ...
/* pid_t *ptid, struct user_desc *tls, pid_t *ctid */ );
...
●Flags is the CLONE_* flags, including the namespaces

CLONE_NEW* flags. There are more than 20 flags in total.

● See include/uapi/linux/sched.h

●There is no parameter of a namespace name.

● How do we know if two processes are in the same namespace ?

● Namespaces do not have names.

● Six entries (inodes) were added under /proc/<pid>/ns (one for

each namespace) (in kernel 3.8 and higher.)

● Each namespace has a unique inode number.

This inode number of a each namespace is created when the namespace is created.
●

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 Nameless namespaces

●ls -al /proc/<pid>/ns

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 24 17:29 ipc -> ipc:[4026531839]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 24 17:29 mnt -> mnt:[4026531840]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 24 17:29 net -> net:[4026531956]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 24 17:29 pid -> pid:[4026531836]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 24 17:29 user -> user:[4026531837]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Apr 24 17:29 uts -> uts:[4026531838]

You can use also readlink.

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 Implementation - contd
● A member named nsproxy was added to the process descriptor
, struct task_struct.
●A method named task_nsproxy(struct task_struct *tsk), to access

the nsproxy of a specified process. (include/linux/nsproxy.h)

● nsproxy includes 5 inner namespaces:

● uts_ns, ipc_ns, mnt_ns, pid_ns, net_ns;

Notice that user ns is missing in this list,

●it is a member of the credentials object (struct cred) which is a

member of the process descriptor, task_struct.

● There is an initial, default namespace for each namespace.

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 Implementation - contd
● Kernel config items:
CONFIG_NAMESPACES
CONFIG_UTS_NS
CONFIG_IPC_NS
CONFIG_USER_NS
CONFIG_PID_NS
CONFIG_NET_NS

●
user space additions:
● IPROUTE package
●some additions like ip netns add/ip netns del and more.

●util-linux package

●unshare util with support for all the 6 namespaces.

●nsenter – a wrapper around setns().

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 UTS namespace
● uts - (Unix timesharing)
– Very simple to implement.

Added a member named uts_ns (uts_namespace object) to the

nsproxy. process descriptor
(task_struct)

nsproxy new_utsname struct

uts_ns (uts_namespace object) sysname
nodename
name (new_utsname object) release
version
machine
domainname
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 UTS namespace - contd
The old implementation of gethostname():

asmlinkage long sys_gethostname(char __user *name, int len)

{
...
if (copy_to_user(name, system_utsname.nodename, i))
... errno = -EFAULT;
}

(system_utsname is a global)

kernel/sys.c, Kernel v2.6.11.5

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 UTS namespace - contd
A Method called utsname() was added:
static inline struct new_utsname *utsname(void)
{
return &current->nsproxy->uts_ns->name;
}

The new implementation of gethostname():

SYSCALL_DEFINE2(gethostname, char __user *, name, int, len)
{
struct new_utsname *u;
...
u = utsname();
if (copy_to_user(name, u->nodename, i))
errno = -EFAULT;
...
}
Similar approach in uname() and sethostname() syscalls.
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 UTS namespace - Example
We have a machine where hostname is myoldhostname.
uname -n
myoldhostname

unshare -u /bin/bash
This create a UTS namespace by unshare()
syscall and call execvp() for invoking bash.
Then:
hostname mynewhostname
uname -n
mynewhostname

Now from a different terminal we will run uname -n, and we will
see myoldhostname.
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 UTS namespace - Example

nsexec
nsexec is a package by Serge Hallyn; it consists of a
program called nsexec.c which creates tasks in new
namespaces (there are some more utils in it) by clone() or by
unshare() with fork().
https://launchpad.net/~serge-hallyn/+archive/nsexec

Again we have a machine where hostname is myoldhostname.

uname -n
myoldhostname

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 IPC namespaces
The same principle as uts , nothing
special, more code.
Added a member named ipc_ns
(ipc_namespace object) to the nsproxy.
● CONFIG_POSIX_MQUEUE or CONFIG_SYSVIPC must be set

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 Network Namespaces
● A network namespace is logically another copy of the network stack,
with its own routes, firewall rules, and network devices.
● The network namespace is struct net. (defined in

include/net/net_namespace.h)
Struct net includes all network stack ingredients, like:
– Loopback device.
– SNMP stats. (netns_mib)
– All network tables:routing, neighboring, etc.
– All sockets
– /procfs and /sysfs entries.

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 Implementations guidelines

• A network device belongs to exactly one network

namespace.
● Added to struct net_device structure:

● struct net *nd_net;

for the Network namespace this network device is inside.
●Added a method: dev_net(const struct net_device *dev)

to access the nd_net namespace of a network device.

• A socket belongs to exactly one network namespace.

● Added sk_net to struct sock (also a pointer to struct net), for the

Network namespace this socket is inside.

● Added sock_net() and sock_net_set() methods (get/set network

namespace of a socket)

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 Network Namespaces - contd
● Added a system wide linked list of all namespaces: net_namespace_list,
and a macro to traverse it (for_each_net())
● The initial network namespace, init_net (instance of struct net), includes
the loopback device and all physical devices, the networking tables, etc.
● Each newly created network namespace includes only the loopback device.
● There are no sockets in a newly created namespace:

netstat -nl
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
Active UNIX domain sockets (only servers)
Proto RefCnt Flags Type State I-Node Path

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 Example
● Create two namespaces, called "myns1" and "myns2":
● ip netns add myns1
● ip netns add myns2
– (In fedora 18, ip netns is included in the iproute package).
● This triggers:
● creation of /var/run/netns/myns1,/var/run/netns/myns2 empty folders
● calling the unshare() system call with CLONE_NEWNET.
– unshare() does not trigger cloning of a process; it does create
a new namespace (a network namespace, because of the
CLONE_NEWNET flag).
● see netns_add() in ipnetns.c (iproute2)

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● You can use the file descriptor of /var/run/netns/myns1 with the setns() system call.
● From man 2 setns:
...
int setns(int fd, int nstype);
DESCRIPTION
Given a file descriptor referring to a namespace, reassociate the calling
thread with that namespace.
...
● In case you pass 0 as nstype, no check is done about the fd.
● In case you pass some nstype, like CLONE_NEWNET of CLONE_NEWUTS, the
method verifies that the specified nstype corresponds to the specified fd.

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 Network Namespaces - delete
● You delete a namespace by:
● ip netns del myns1
– This unmounts and removes /var/run/netns/myns1
– see netns_delete() in ipnetns.c
– Will not delete a network namespace if there is one or more processes attached to it.

● Notice that after deleting a namespace, all its migratable network devices
are moved to the default network namespace;
● unmoveable devices (devices who have NETIF_F_NETNS_LOCAL in their
features) and virtual devices are not moved to the default network namespace.
● (The semantics of migratable network devices and unmoveable devices
are taken from default_device_exit() method, net/core/dev.c).

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 NETIF_F_NETNS_LOCAL
● NETIF_F_NETNS_LOCAL ia a network device feature
– (a member of net_device struct, of type netdev_features_t)
● It is set for devices that are not allowed to move between network namespaces; sometime
these devices are named "local devices".
● Example for local devices (where NETIF_F_NETNS_LOCAL is set):
– Loopback, VXLAN, ppp, bridge.
– You can see it with ethtool (by ethtool -k, or ethtool –show-
features)
– ethtool -k p2p1
netns-local: off [fixed]
For the loopback device:
ethtool -k lo
netns-local: on [fixed]

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 VXLAN
● Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network.
● VXLAN is a standard protocol to transfer layer 2 Ethernet packets
over UDP.
● Why do we need it ?
● There are firewalls which block tunnels and allow, for example, only
TCP/UDP traffic.
● developed by Stephen Hemminger.
– drivers/net/vxlan.c
– IANA assigned port is 4789
– Linux default is 8472 (legacy)

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When trying to move a device with NETIF_F_NETNS_LOCAL flag, like
VXLAN, from one namespace to another, we will encounter an error:

ip link add myvxlan type vxlan id 1

ip link set myvxlan netns myns1

We will get: RTNETLINK answers: Invalid argument

int dev_change_net_namespace(struct net_device *dev, struct net *net, const char *pat)
{
int err;

err = -EINVAL;
if (dev->features & NETIF_F_NETNS_LOCAL)
goto out;
...
}

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● You list the network namespaces (which were added via “ ip netns
add”)
● ip netns list
– this simply reads the namespaces under:
/var/run/netns
● You can find the pid (or list of pids) in a specified net namespace by:
– ip netns pids namespaceName
● You can find the net namespace of a specified pid by:
– ip/ip netns identify #pid

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You can monitor addition/removal of network
namespaces by:
ip netns monitor

- prints one line for each addition/removal event it

sees

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● Assigning p2p1 interface to myns1 network namespace:
● ip link set p2p1 netns myns1
– This triggers changing the network namespace of the net_device to “myns1”.
– It is handled by dev_change_net_namespace(), net/core/dev.c.
● Now, running:
● ip netns exec myns1 bash
● will transfer me to myns1 network namespaces; so if I will run there:
● ifconfig -a
● I will see p2p1 (and the loopback device);
– Also under /sys/class/net, there will be only p2p1 and lo folders.
● But if I will open a new terminal and type ifconifg -a, I will not see
p2p1.

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● Also, when going to the second namespace by running:
● ip netns exec myns2 bash
● will transfer me to myns2 network namespace; but if we will run
there:
● ifconfig -a
– We will not see p2p1; we will only see the loopback device.
● We move a network device to the default, initial namespace by:
ip link set p2p1 netns 1

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● In that namespace, network application which look for files under
/etc, will first look in /etc/netns/myns1/, and then in /etc.
● For example, if we will add the following entry "192.168.2.111
www.dummy.com"
● in /etc/netns/myns1/hosts, and run:
● ping www.dummy.com
● we will see that we are pinging 192.168.2.111.

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 veth
● You can communicate between two network namespaces by:
● creating a pair of network devices (veth) and move one to another
network namespace.
● Veth (Virtual Ethernet) is like a pipe.
● unix sockets (use paths on the filesystems).

Example with veth:

Create two namesapces, myns1 and myns1:
ip netns add myns1
ip netns add myns2

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 veth
ip netns exec myns1 bash
- open a shell of myns1 net namespace
ip link add name if_one type veth peer name if_one_peer
- create veth interface, with if_one and if_one_peer
- ifconfig running in myns1 will show if_one and if_one_peer
and lo (the loopback device)
- ifconfig running in myns2 will show only lo (the loopback
device)
Run from myns1 shell:
ip link set dev if_one_peer netns myns2
move if_one_peer to myns2
- now ifconfig running in myns2 will show if_one_peer
and lo (the loopback device)

- Now set ip addresses to if_one (myns1) and if_one_peer

(myns2) and you can send traffic.
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 unshare util
● The unshare utility
● Util-linux recent git tree has the unshare utility with support for all six namespaces:
http://git.kernel.org/cgit/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git

./unshare –help
...
Options:
-m, --mount unshare mounts namespace
-u, --uts unshare UTS namespace (hostname etc)
-i, --ipc unshare System V IPC namespace
-n, --net unshare network namespace
-p, --pid unshare pid namespace
-U, --user unshare user namespace

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● For example:
● Type:
● ./unshare --net bash
– A new network namespace was generated and the bash process was
generated inside that namespace.
● Now run ifconfig -a
● You will see only the loopback device.
– With unshare util, no folder is created under /var/run/netns;
also network application in the net namespace we created, do
not look under /etc/netns
– If you will kill this bash or exit from this bash, then the network
namespace will be freed.
–

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–
This is not the case as with ip netns exec myns1 bash; in that
case, killing/exiting the bash does not trigger destroying the
namespace.

For implementation details, look in

put_net(struct net *net) and the reference count (named “count”)
of the network namespace struct net.

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●
Mount namespaces
Added a member named mnt_ns
(mnt_namespace object) to the nsproxy.

●We copy the mount namespace of the calling process

using generic filesystem method (see copy_tree() in
dup_mnt_ns()).

● In the new mount namespace, all previous mounts will be

visible; and from now on:
● mounts/unmounts in that mount namespace are invisible to

the rest of the system.

● mounts/unmounts in the global namespace are visible in

that namespace.
●pam_namespace module uses mount namespaces (with
unshare(CLONE_NEWNS) )
(modules/pam_namespace/pam_namespace.c)
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 mount namespaces: example 1
Example 1 (tested on Ubuntu):
Verify that /dev/sda3 is not mounted:
mount | grep /dev/sda3
should give nothing.
unshare -m /bin/bash
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3

now run mount | grep sda3

We will see:
/dev/sda3 on /mnt/sda3 type ext3 (rw)

readlink /proc/$$/ns/mnt
mnt:[4026532114]

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From another terminal run
readlink /proc/$$/ns/mnt
mnt:[4026531840]
The results shows that we are in a different
namespace.
Now run:
mount | grep sda3
/dev/sda3 on /mnt/sda3 type ext3 (rw)
Why ? We are in a different mount namespace?
We should have not see the mount which was
done from another namespace!
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The answer is simple: running mount is not good
enough when working with mount namespaces.
The reason is that mount reads /etc/mtab, which
was updated by the mount command; mount
command does not access the kernel structures.

What is the solution?

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To access directly the kernel data structures, you
should run:
cat /proc/mounts | grep sda3
(/proc/mounts is in fact symbolic link to
/proc/self/mounts).
Now you will get no results, as expected.

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 mount namespaces: example 2
Example2: tested on Fedora 18
Verify that /dev/sdb3 is not mounted:

mount | grep sdb3

should give nothing.
unshare -m /bin/bash
mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/sdb3

now run mount | grep sdb3

You will see:
/dev/sdb3 on /mnt/sdb3 type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)

readlink /proc/$$/ns/mnt
mnt:[4026532381]
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From another terminal run:
readlink /proc/$$/ns/mnt
mnt:[4026531840]
This shows that we are in a different namespace.
Now run:
mount | grep sdb3
/dev/sdb3 on /mnt/sdb3 type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)

- We know now that we should use cat /proc/mounts (and not

mount) to get the right answer when working with namespace; so:
cat /proc/mounts | grep sdb3
/dev/sdb3 /mnt/sdb3 ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 0
Why is it so ? We should have seen no results, as in previous
example.
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Answer: Fedora runs systemd;systemd uses the shared flag for mounting /.

From systemd source code: (src/core/mount-setup.c)

int mount_setup(bool loaded_policy) {

...
if (mount(NULL, "/", NULL, MS_REC|MS_SHARED, NULL) < 0)
log_warning("Failed to set up the root directory for shared mount propagation: %m");
...
}
(MS_REC stands for recursive mount)

How do I know whether we have a shared flags ?

cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep shared

we will see:
...
33 1 8:3 / / rw,relatime shared:1 - ext4 /dev/sda3 rw,data=ordered
...
What to do ?

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 mount --make-rprivate -o remount / /dev/sda3
This changes the shared flag to private,
recursively.

--make-rprivate – set the private flag recursively

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 Shared subtrees
By default, the filesysytem is mounted as private,
unless the shared mount flag is set explicitly.

/mnt /bin /users

/users/user1 /users/user2

Now, we want that user1 and user2 folders will see the whole
filesystem; we will run
mount –bind / /users/user1
mount –bind / /users/user2 50/121 http://ramirose.wix.com/ramirosen
 Shared subtrees - contd
/

/mnt /bin /users

/users/user1 /users/user2

/users /mnt /bin /users /mnt /bin

/user1 /users2 /user1 /user2

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 Shared subtrees – Quiz

Quiz:
Now, we mount a usb disk on key on /mnt/dok.

Will it be seen in /users/user1/mnt or

/users/user2/mnt?

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 Shared subtrees - contd

The answer is no, since by default, the filesysytem is

mounted as private. To enable that the dok will be seen
also under /users/user1/mnt or /users/user2/mnt, we
should mount the filesystem as shared:

mount / --make-rshared
And then mount the usb disk on key again .
The shared subtrees patch is from 2005 by Ram Pai.
It add some mount flags like –make-slave, --make-rslave, -make-
unbindable, --make-runbindable and more. The patch added this kernel
mount flags: MS_UNBINDABLE, MS_PRIVATE, MS_SLAVE and
MS_SHARED
The shared flag is in use by the fuse filesystem.
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 PID namespaces
● Added a member named pid_ns (pid_namespace object) to the
nsproxy.
● Processes in different PID namespaces can have the same process ID.
● When creating the first process in a new namespace, its PID is 1.
● Behavior like the “init” process:
– When a process dies, all its orphaned children will now have the process with PID 1 as
their parent (child reaping).
– Sending SIGKILL signal does not kill process 1, regardless of which namespace the
command was issued (initial namespace or other pid namespace).

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 PID namespaces - contd
● When a new namespace is created, we cannot see from it the PID
of the parent namespace; running getppid() from the new pid
namespace will return 0.
● But all PIDs which are used in this namespace are visible to the
parent namespace.
● pid namespaces can be nested, up to 32 nesting levels.
(MAX_PID_NS_LEVEL).
● See: multi_pidns.c, Michael Kerrisk, from
http://lwn.net/Articles/532745/.
● When trying to run multi_pidns with 33, you will get:
– clone: Invalid argument

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 User Namespaces
● Added a member named user_ns
(user_namespace object) to the nsproxy.
● include/linux/user_namespace.h
●Includes a pointer named parent to the user_namespace

that created it.

●struct user_namespace *parent;
●Includes the effective uid of the process that created it:

●kuid_t owner;

●A process will have distinct set of UIDs, GIDs

and capabilities.

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 User Namespaces
Creating a new user namespace is done by passing
CLONE_NEWUSER to fork() or unshare().

Example:
Running from some user account
id -u
1000 // 1000 is the effective user ID.
id -g
1000 // 1000 is the effective group ID.

(usually the first user added gets uid/gid of 1000 )

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 User Namespaces - example
Capbilties:
cat /proc/self/status | grep Cap
CapInh: 0000000000000000
CapPrm: 0000000000000000
CapEff: 0000000000000000
CapBnd: 0000001fffffffff

In order to create a user namespace and start a shell, we will run from
that non-root account:

./nsexec -cU /bin/bash

●The c flag is for using clone

●The U flag is for using user namespace (CLONE_NEWUSER flag for

clone())

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User Namespaces - example -contd
Now from the new shell run
id -u
65534
id -g
65534

● These are default values for the eUID and eGUID In the new
namespace.
● We will get the same results for effective user id and effective

root id also when running /nsexec -cU /bin/bash as root.

● The defaults can be changed by: /proc/sys/kernel/overflowuid,

/proc/sys/kernel/overflowgid
● In fact, the user namespace that was created had full capabilities,

but the call to exec() with bash removed them.

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cat /proc/self/status | grep Cap

CapInh: 0000000000000000
CapPrm: 0000000000000000
CapEff: 0000000000000000
CapBnd: 0000001fffffffff

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 User Namespaces - contd
Now run:
echo $$ (get the bash pid)
Now, from a different root terminal, we set the uid_map:
First, we can see that uid_map is uninitialized by:
cat /proc/<pid>/uid_map
Then:
echo 0 1000 10 > /proc/<pid>/uid_map
(<pid> is the pid of the bash process from previous step).
Entry in uid_map is of the following format:
namespace_first_uid host_first_uid number_of_uids

So this sets the first uid in the new namespace (which

correspond to uid 1000 in the outside world) to be 0; the
second will be 1; and so forth, for 10 entries.
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 User Namespaces - contd
Note: you can set the uid_map only once for a specific
process. Further attempts will fail.

run
id -u
You will get 0.

whoami
root

●User namespace is the only namespace which can be

created without CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability

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cat /proc/self/status | grep Cap

CapInh: 0000000000000000
CapPrm: 0000001fffffffff
CapEff: 0000001fffffffff
CapBnd: 0000001fffffffff

The CapEff (Effective Capabilites) is 1fffffffff-> this is 37 bits of '1' ,

which means all capabilities.

Quiz: Will unshare --net bash work now ?

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Answer: no
unshare --net bash
unshare: cannot set group id: Invalid argument

But after running, from a different terminal, as root:

echo 0 1000 10 > /proc/2429/gid_map
It will work.

ls /root will fail however:

ls /root/
ls: cannot open directory /root/: Permission denied

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Short quiz 1:
I am a regular user, not root.
Will clone() with (CLONE_NEWNET) work ?

Short quiz 2:
Will clone() with (CLONE_NEWNET | CLONE_NEWUSER)
work ?

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● Quiz 1 : No.
●In order to use the CLONE_NEWNET we need to have
CAP_SYS_ADMIN.
unshare --net bash
unshare: unshare failed: Operation not permitted

● Quiz 2: Yes.
namespaces code guarantees us that user namespace creation is the
first to be created. For creating a user namespace we do'nt need
CAP_SYS_ADMIN. The user namespace is created with full
capabilities, so we can create the network namespace successfully.
./unshare --net --user /bin/bash
No errors!

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Quiz 3:
If you run, from a non root user,
unsare –user bash

And then
cat /proc/self/status | grep CapEff
CapEff: 0000000000000000

This means no capabilities. So how was the net namespace,

which needs CAP_SYS_ADMIN, created ?

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Answer: we first do unshare;
It is first done with user namespace. This enables all capabilities.
Then we create the namespace. Afterwards, we call exec for the
shell; exec removes capabilities.

From unshare.c of util-linux:

if (-1 == unshare(unshare_flags))
err(EXIT_FAILURE, _("unshare failed"));
...

exec_shell();

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Anatomy of a user namespaces vulnerability
By Michael Kerrisk, March 2013
About CVE 2013-1858 - exploitable security
vulnerability
http://lwn.net/Articles/543273/

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 cgroups
●
cgroups (control groups) subsystem is a Resource Management solution providing a
generic process-grouping framework.
●
This work was started by engineers at Google (primarily Paul Menage and Rohit Seth) in
2006 under the name "process containers; in 2007, renamed to “Control Groups”.
●
Maintainers: Li Zefan (huawei) and Tejun Heo ;
●
The memory controller (memcg) is maintained separately (4 maintainers)
●
Probably the most complex.
– Namespaces provide per process resource isolation solution.
– Cgroups provide resource management solution (handling groups).
● Available in Fedora 18 kernel and ubuntu 12.10 kernel (also some previous releases).

– Fedora systemd uses cgroups.

– Ubuntu does not have systemd. Tip: do tests with Ubuntu and also make sure that cgroups are not
mounted after boot, by looking with mount (packages such as cgroup-lite can exist)

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● The implementation of cgroups requires a few, simple hooks into the rest
of the kernel, none in performance-critical paths:
– In boot phase (init/main.c) to preform various initializations.
– In process creation and destroy methods, fork() and exit().
– A new file system of type "cgroup" (VFS)
– Process descriptor additions (struct task_struct)
– Add procfs entries:
● For each process: /proc/pid/cgroup.

● System-wide: /proc/cgroups

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– The cgroup modules are not located in one folder but
scattered in the kernel tree according to their functionality:
● memory: mm/memcontrol.c
● cpuset: kernel/cpuset.c.
● net_prio: net/core/netprio_cgroup.c
● devices: security/device_cgroup.c.
● And so on.

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 cgroups and kernel namespaces

Note that the cgroups is not dependent upon namespaces; you can build
cgroups without namespaces kernel support.
There was an attempt in the past to add "ns" subsystem (ns_cgroup, namespace
cgroup subsystem); with this, you could mount a namespace subsystem by:
mount -t cgroup -ons.
This code it was removed in 2011 (by a patch by Daniel Lezcano).
See:
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=
a77aea92010acf54ad785047234418d5d68772e2

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 cgroups VFS
● Cgroups uses a Virtual File System
– All entries created in it are not persistent and deleted after
reboot.
● All cgroups actions are performed via filesystem actions
(create/remove directory, reading/writing to files in it,
mounting/mount options).
● For example:
– cgroup inode_operations for cgroup mkdir/rmdir.
– cgroup file_system_type for cgroup mount/unmount.
– cgroup file_operations for reading/writing to control files.

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 Mounting cgroups
In order to use a filesystem (browse it/attach tasks to cgroups,etc) it must be mounted.
The control group can be mounted anywhere on the filesystem. Systemd uses /sys/fs/cgroup.
When mounting, we can specify with mount options (-o) which subsystems we want to use.
There are 11 cgroup subsystems (controllers) (kernel 3.9.0-rc4 , April 2013); two can be built as
modules. (All subsystems are instances of cgroup_subsys struct)
cpuset_subsys - defined in kernel/cpuset.c.
freezer_subsys - defined in kernel/cgroup_freezer.c.
mem_cgroup_subsys - defined in mm/memcontrol.c; Aka memcg - memory control groups.
blkio_subsys - defined in block/blk-cgroup.c.
net_cls_subsys - defined in net/sched/cls_cgroup.c ( can be built as a kernel module)
net_prio_subsys - defined in net/core/netprio_cgroup.c ( can be built as a kernel module)
devices_subsys - defined in security/device_cgroup.c.
perf_subsys (perf_event) - defined in kernel/events/core.c
hugetlb_subsys - defined in mm/hugetlb_cgroup.c.
cpu_cgroup_subsys - defined in kernel/sched/core.c
cpuacct_subsys - defined in kernel/sched/core.c

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 Mounting cgroups – contd.
In order to mount a subsystem, you should first create a folder for it
under /cgroup.
In order to mount a cgroup, you first mount some tmpfs root folder:
● mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /cgroup
Mounting of the memory subsystem, for example, is done thus:
● mkdir /cgroup/memtest
● mount -t cgroup -o memory test /cgroup/memtest/
Note that instead “test” you can insert any text; this text is not
handled by cgroups core. It's only usage is when displaying the mount
by the “mount” command or by cat /proc/mounts.

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 Mounting cgroups – contd.
● Mount creates cgroupfs_root object + cgroup (top_cgroup) object
● mounting another path with the same subsystems - the same
subsys_mask; the same cgroupfs_root object is reused.
● mkdir increments number_of_cgroups, rmdir decrements number_of_cgroups.
● cgroup1 - created by mkdir /cgroup/memtest/cgroup1.
cgroupfs_root *root
struct super_block *sb
The super block being used. (in memory). cgroup
struct cgroup top_cgroup

unsigned long subsys_mask

bitmask of subsystems attached to this hierarchy
parent
int number_of_cgroups parent

cgroup1 cgroup2

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parent
cgroup3
 Mounting a set of subsystems
From Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt:

If an active hierarchy with exactly the same set of subsystems

already exists, it will be reused for the new mount.

If no existing hierarchy matches, and any of the requested

subsystems are in use in an existing hierarchy, the mount will fail
with -EBUSY.

Otherwise, a new hierarchy is activated, associated with the

requested subsystems.

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 First case: Reuse
● mount -t tmpfs test1 /cgroup/test1
● mount -t tmpfs test2 /cgroup/test2
● mount -t cgroup -ocpu,cpuacct test1 /cgroup/test1
● mount -t cgroup -ocpu,cpuacct test2 /cgroup/test2
● This will work; the mount method recognizes that we want to
use the same mask of subsytems in the second case.
– (Behind the scenes, this is done by the return value of sget() method, called
from cgroup_mount(), found an already allocated superblock; the sget()
makes sure that the mask of the sb and the required mask are identical)
– Both will use the same cgroupfs_root object.
● This is exactly the first case described in Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt

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 Second case: any of the requested
subsystems are in use
● mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /cgroup/tst1/
● mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /cgroup/tst2/
● mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /cgroup/tst3/
● mount -t cgroup -o freezer tst1 /cgroup/tst1/
● mount -t cgroup -o memory tst2 /cgroup/tst2/
● mount -t cgroup -o freezer,memory tst3 /cgroup/tst3
– Last command will give an error. (-EBUSY).
The reason: these subsystems (controllers) were been
separately mounted.
●
This is exactly the second case described in Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt

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 Third case - no existing hierarchy
no existing hierarchy matches, and none of the requested
subsystems are in use in an existing hierarchy:

mount -t cgroup -o net_prio netpriotest /cgroup/net_prio/

Will succeed.

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– under each new cgroup which is created, these 4 files are always created:
●
tasks
– list of pids which are attached to this group.
● cgroup.procs.
– list of thread group IDs (listed by TGID) attached to this group.
● cgroup.event_control.
– Example in following slides.
● notify_on_release (boolean).
– For a newly generated cgroup, the value of notify_on_release in inherited
from its parent; However, changing notify_on_release in the parent does not
change the value in the children he already has.
– Example in following slides.
– For the topmost cgroup root object only, there is also a release_agent – a
command which will be invoked when the last process of a cgroup terminates; the
notify_on_release flag should be set in order that it will be activated.

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 ● Each subsystem adds specific control files for its own needs, besides
these 4 fields. All control files created by cgroup subsystems are given a
prefix corresponding to their subsystem name. For example:
cpuset.cpus
cpuset.mems cpuset devices
cpuset.cpu_exclusive subsystem subsystem
cpuset.mem_exclusive
devices.allow
cpuset.mem_hardwall
devices.deny
cpuset.sched_load_balance
cpuset.sched_relax_domain_level
devices.list
cpuset.memory_migrate
cpuset.memory_pressure
cpuset.memory_spread_page
cpuset.memory_spread_slab
cpuset.memory_pressure_enabled

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 cpu subsystem
cpu subsystem

cpu.shares (only if CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED is set)

cpu.cfs_quota_us (only if CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH is set)

cpu.cfs_period_us (only if CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH is set)
cpu.stat (only if CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH is set)

cpu.rt_runtime_us (only if CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED is set)

cpu.rt_period_us (only if CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED is set)

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 memory subsystem
memory.usage_in_bytes
memory.max_usage_in_bytes
memory.limit_in_bytes
memory.soft_limit_in_bytes memory
memory.failcnt
memory.stat subsystem
memory.force_empty
memory.use_hierarchy
memory.swappiness up to 25 control files
memory.move_charge_at_immigrate
memory.oom_control

memory.numa_stat (only if CONFIG_NUMA is set)

memory.kmem.limit_in_bytes (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM is set)

memory.kmem.usage_in_bytes (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM is set)
memory.kmem.failcnt (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM is set)
memory.kmem.max_usage_in_bytes (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM is set)

memory.kmem.tcp.limit_in_bytes (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM is set)

memory.kmem.tcp.usage_in_bytes (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM is set)
memory.kmem.tcp.failcnt (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM is set)
memory.kmem.tcp.max_usage_in_bytes (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM is set)
memory.kmem.slabinfo (only if CONFIG_SLABINFO is set)
memory.memsw.usage_in_bytes (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_SWAP is set)
memory.memsw.max_usage_in_bytes (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_SWAP is set)
memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_SWAP is set)
memory.memsw.failcnt (only if CONFIG_MEMCG_SWAP is set)

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 blkio subsystem
blkio.weight_device
blkio.weight blkio.throttle.read_bps_device
blkio.weight_device blkio.throttle.write_bps_device
blkio.weight blkio.throttle.read_iops_device
blkio.leaf_weight_device blkio.throttle.write_iops_device
blkio.leaf_weight blkio.throttle.io_service_bytes
blkio.time blkio.throttle.io_serviced
blkio.sectors
blkio.io_service_bytes
blkio.io_serviced
blkio.io_service_time
blkio.io_wait_time
blkio.io_merged
blkio.io_queued
blkio.time_recursive
blkio.sectors_recursive
blkio.io_service_bytes_recursive
blkio.io_serviced_recursive
blkio.io_service_time_recursive
blkio.io_wait_time_recursive
blkio.io_merged_recursive
blkio.io_queued_recursive

blkio.avg_queue_size (only ifCONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP is set)

blkio.group_wait_time (only ifCONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP is set)
blkio.idle_time (only ifCONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP is set)
blkio.empty_time (only ifCONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP is set)
blkio.dequeue (only ifCONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP is set)
blkio.unaccounted_time (only ifCONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP is set)

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 netprio

net_prio.ifpriomap
net_prio.prioidx

Note the netprio_cgroup.ko should be insmoded

so the mount will succeed. Moreover, rmmod will
fail if netprio is mounted

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 – When mounting a cgroup subsystem (or a set of cgroup subsystems) , all
processes in the system belong to it (the top cgroup object).
● After mount -t cgroup -o memory test /cgroup/memtest/
– you can see all tasks by: cat /cgroup/memtest/tasks
– When creating new child cgroups in that hierarchy, each one of them will not have
any tasks at all initially.
– Example:
– mkdir /cgroup/memtest/group1
– mkdir /cgroup/memtest/group2
– cat /cgroup/memtest/group1/tasks
● Shows nothing.
– cat /cgroup/memtest/group2/tasks
● Shows nothing.

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●Any task can be a member of exactly one cgroup in a specific
hierarchy.
●Example:

●echo $$ > /cgroup/memtest/group1/tasks

●cat /cgroup/memtest/group1/tasks

●cat /cgroup/memtest/group2/tasks

●Will show that task only in group1/tasks.

●After:

●echo $$ > /cgroup/memtest/group2/tasks

●The task was moved to group2; we will see that task it only in

group2/tasks.

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 Removing a child group
Removing a child group is done by rmdir.
We cannot remove a child group in these two cases:
●When it has processes attached to it.

●When it has children.

We will get -EBUSY error in both cases.

Example 1 - processes attached to a group:

echo $$ > /cgroup/memtest/group1/tasks
rmdir /cgroup/memtest/group1
rmdir: failed to remove `/cgroup/memtest/group1': Device or
resource busy

Example 2 - group has children:

mkdir /cgroup/memtest/group2/childOfGroup2
cat /cgroup/memtest/group2/tasks
- to make sure that there are no processes in group2.
rmdir /cgroup/memtest/group2/
rmdir: failed to remove `/cgroup/memtest/group2/': Device or resource busy

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 ●
Nesting is allowed:
– mkdir /cgroup/memtest/0/FirstSon
– mkdir /cgroup/memtest/0/SecondSon
– mkdir /cgroup/memtest/0/ThirdSon
●
However, there are subsystems which will emit a kernel warning when trying to nest; in this
subsystems, the .broken_hierarchy boolean member of cgroup_subsys is set explicitly to true.
For example:
struct cgroup_subsys devices_subsys = {
.name = "devices",
...
.broken_hierarchy = true,
}
BTW, a recent patch removed it; in latest git for-3.10 tree, the only subsystem with broken_hierarchy
is blkio.

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 broken_hierarchy example
● typing:
● mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/devices/0
● Will omit no error, but if afterwards we will type:
● mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/devices/0/firstSon
● We will see in the kernel log this warning:
● cgroup: mkdir (4730) created nested cgroup for controller "devices"
which has incomplete hierarchy support. Nested cgroups may
change behavior in the future.

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● In this way, we can mount any one of the 11 cgroup subsystems
(controllers) under it:
● mkdir /cgroup/cpuset
● mount -t cgroup -ocpuset cpuset_group /cgroup/cpuset/
● Also here, the “cpuset_group” is only for the mount command,
– So this will also work:
– mkdir /cgroup2/
– mount -t tmpfs cgroup2_root /cgroup2
– mkdir /cgroup2/cpuset
– mount -t cgroup -ocpuset mytest /cgroup2/cpuset
–

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 devices
● Also referred to as : devcg (devices control group)
●
devices cgroup provides enforcing restrictions on opening and mknod operations
on device files.
●
3 files: devices.allow, devices.deny, devices.list.
– devices.allow can be considered as devices whitelist
– devices.deny can be considered as devices blacklist.
– devices.list available devices.
● Each entry is 4 fields:
– type: can be a (all), c (char device), or b (block device).
●
All means all types of devices, and all major and minor numbers.
– Major number.
– Minor number.
– Access: composition of 'r' (read), 'w' (write) and 'm' (mknod).

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 devices - example
/dev/null major number is 1 and minor number is 3 (You can fetch the major/minor number from
Documentation/devices.txt)
mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/devices/0
By default, for a new group, you have full permissions:
cat /sys/fs/cgroup/devices/0/devices.list
a *:* rwm
echo 'c 1:3 rmw' > /sys/fs/cgroup/devices/0/devices.deny
This denies rmw access from /dev/null deice.
echo $$ > /sys/fs/cgroup/devices/0/tasks
echo "test" > /dev/null
bash: /dev/null: Operation not permitted
echo a > /sys/fs/cgroup/devices/0/devices.allow
This adds the 'a *:* rwm' entry to the whitelist.
echo "test" > /dev/null
Now there is no error.

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 cpuset
● Creating a cpuset group is done with:
– mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset/0
● You must be root to run this; for non root user, you will get
the following error:
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset/0’:
–
Permission denied
● cpusets provide a mechanism for assigning a set of CPUs and
Memory Nodes to a set of tasks.

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 cpuset example
On Fedora 18, cpuset is mounted after boot on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset.
cd /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
mkdir test
cd test
/bin/echo 1 > cpuset.cpus
/bin/echo 0 > cpuset.mems
cpuset.cpus and cpuset.mems are not initialized; these two initializations are
mandatory.
/bin/echo $$ > tasks
Last command moves the shell process to the new cpuset cgroup.
You cannot move a list of pids in a single command; you mush issue a separate
command for each pid.

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 memcg (memory control groups)
Example:
mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0
echo $$ > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/tasks
echo 10M > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/memory.limit_in_bytes
You can disable the out of memory killer with memcg:
echo 1 > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/memory.oom_control
This disables the oom killer.
cat /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/memory.oom_control
oom_kill_disable 1
under_oom 0

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● Now run some memory hogging process in this cgroup, which is
known to be killed with oom killer in the default namespace.
● This process will not be killed.
● After some time, the value of under_oom will change to 1
● After enabling the OOM killer again:
echo 0 > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/memory.oom_control
You will get soon get the OOM “Killed” message.

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 Notification API
● There is an API which enable us to get notifications about changing
status of a cgroup. It uses the eventfd() system call
● See man 2 eventfd
● It uses the fd of cgroup.event_control
● Following is a simple userspace app , “eventfd” (error handling was
omitted for brevity)

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 Notification API – example
char buf[256];
int event_fd, control_fd, oom_fd, wb;
uint64_t u;
event_fd = eventfd(0, 0);
control_fd = open("cgroup.event_control", O_WRONLY);
oom_fd = open("memory.oom_control", O_RDONLY);
snprintf(buf, 256, "%d %d", event_fd, oom_fd);
write(control_fd, buf, wb);
close(control_fd);

for (;;) {
read(event_fd, &u, sizeof(uint64_t));
printf("oom event received from mem_cgroup\n");
}

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 Notification API – example (contd)
●
Now run this program (eventfd) thus:
● From /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0
./eventfd cgroup.event_control memory.oom_control
From a second terminal run:
cd /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/
echo $$ > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/tasks
echo 10M > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/memory.limit_in_bytes
Then run a memory hog problem.
When on OOM killer is invoked, you will get the messages from eventfd userspace program, “oom event
received from mem_cgroup”.

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 release_agent example

● The release_agent is invoked when the last process of a cgroup terminates.

● The cgroup sysfs notify_on_release entry should be set so that release_agent will be invoked.
●
A short script, /work/dev/t/date.sh:
#!/bin/sh
date >> /work/log.txt
Run a simple process, which simply sleeps forever; let's say it's PID is pidSleepingProcess.
echo 1 > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/notify_on_release
echo /work/dev/t/date.sh > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/release_agent
mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/
echo pidSleepingProcess > /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/0/tasks
kill -9 pidSleepingProcess
This activates the release_agent; so we will see that the current time and date was written to
/work/log.txt

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 Systemd and cgroups
● Systemd – developed by Lennart Poettering, Kay Sievers,
others.
● Replacement for the Linux init scripts and daemon.

Adopted by Fedora (since Fedora 15 ), openSUSE , others.

● Udev was integrated into systemd.

●systemd uses control groups only for process grouping;

not for anything else like allocating resources like block io bandwidth,
etc.

release_agent is a mount option on Fedora 18:

mount -a | grep systemd
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,release_agent=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-
cgroups-agent,name=systemd)

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cgroup-agent is a short program (cgroups-agent.c)
which all it does is send dbus message via the DBUS
api.

dbus_message_new_signal()/dbus_message_append_
args()/dbus_connection_send()

systemd Lightweight Containers new feature in Fedora

19:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemdLightwei
ghtContainers

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ls /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd/system

abrtd.service crond.service rpcbind.service

abrt-oops.service cups.service rsyslog.service
abrt-xorg.service dbus.service sendmail.service
accounts-daemon.service firewalld.service smartd.service
atd.service [email protected] sm-client.service
auditd.service iprdump.service sshd.service
bluetooth.service iprinit.service [email protected]
cgroup.clone_children iprupdate.service systemd-journald.service
cgroup.event_control ksmtuned.service systemd-logind.service
cgroup.procs mcelog.service systemd-udevd.service
colord.service NetworkManager.service tasks
[email protected] notify_on_release udisks2.service
console-kit-daemon.service polkit.service upower.service

We have here 34 services.

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Example for bluetooth systemd entry:

ls /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd/system/bluetooth.service/

cgroup.clone_children cgroup.event_control cgroup.procs notify_on_release tasks

cat /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd/system/bluetooth.service/tasks
709

There are services which have more than one pid in the tasks control file.

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● With fedora 18, default location of cgroup mount is: /sys/fs/cgroup
●We have 9 controllers:
●/sys/fs/cgroup/blkio

●/sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct

●/sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset

●/sys/fs/cgroup/devices

●/sys/fs/cgroup/freezer

●/sys/fs/cgroup/memory

●/sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls

●/sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event

●/sys/fs/cgroup/systemd

In boot, systemd parses /sys/fs/cgroup and mounts all entries.

●

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 /proc/cgroups

In Fedora 18, cat /proc/cgroups gives:

#subsys_name hierarchy num_cgroups enabled
cpuset 2 1 1
cpu 3 37 1
cpuacct 3 37 1
memory 4 1 1
devices 5 1 1
freezer 6 1 1
net_cls 7 1 1
blkio 8 1 1
perf_event 9 1 1

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 Libcgroup
Libcgroup
libcgroup is a library that abstracts the control group file system in Linux.
libcgroup-tools package provides tools for performing cgroups actions.
Ubuntu:apt-get install cgroup-bin (tried on Ubuntu 12.10)
Fedora: yum install libcgroup

cgcreate creates new cgroup; cgset sets parameters for given cgroup(s); and cgexec runs a task in specified
control groups.
Example:
cgcreate -g cpuset:/test
cgset -r cpuset.cpus=1 /test
cgset -r cpuset.mems=0 /test
cgexec -g cpuset:/test bash

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One of the advantages of cgroups framework is
that it is simple to add kernel modules which will
work with. There are only two callback which we
must implement, css_alloc() and css_free().
And there is no need to patch the kernel unless
you do something special.
Thus, net/core/netprio_cgroup.c is only 322 lines
of code and net/sched/cls_cgroup.c is 332 lines
of code.

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 Checkpoint/Restart

Checkpointing is to the operation of a Checkpointing the state of a group of processes to

a single file or several files.
Restart is the operation of restoring these processes at some future time by reading and
parsing that file/files.
Attempts to merge Checkpoint/Restart in the Linux kernel failed:
Attempts to merge CKPT of openVZ failed:
Oren Laadan spent about three years for implementing
checkpoint/restart in kernel; this code was not merged either.
Checkpoint and Restore In Userspace (CRIU)
● A project of OpenVZ

● sponsored and supported by Parallels.

Uses some kernel patches

http://criu.org/Main_Page

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● Workman: (workload management)
It aims to provide high-level resource allocation and
management implemented as a library but provides bindings for
more languages (depends on the GObject framework ; allows all
the library APIs to be exposed to non-C languages like Perl,
Python, JavaScript, Vala).

https://gitorious.org/workman/pages/Home
●Pax Controla Groupiana – a document:
●Tries to define precautions that a software or user can take to avoid breaking

or confusing other users of the cgroup filesystem.

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/PaxControlGroups

● aka "How to behave nicely in the cgroupfs trees"

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Note: in this presentation, we refer to two
userspace package, iproute and util-linux. The
examples are based on the most recent git
source code of these packages.
You can check namespaces and cgroups
support on your machine by running:
lxc-checkconfig
(from lxc package)

In Fedora 18 and Ubuntu 13.04, there is no

support for User Namespaces though it is kernel
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● On Android - Samsung Mini Galaxy:
– cat /proc/mounts | grep cgroup
none /acct cgroup rw,relatime,cpuacct 0 0
none /dev/cpuctl cgroup rw,relatime,cpu 0 0

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 Links
Namespaces in operation series By Michael Kerrisk, January 2013:
part 1: namespaces overview
http://lwn.net/Articles/531114/

part 2: the namespaces API

http://lwn.net/Articles/531381/

part 3: PID namespaces

http://lwn.net/Articles/531419/

part 4: more on PID namespaces

http://lwn.net/Articles/532748/

part 5: User namespaces

http://lwn.net/Articles/532593/

part 6: more on user namespaces

http://lwn.net/Articles/540087/
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 Links - contd
Stepping closer to practical containers: "syslog" namespaces
http://lwn.net/Articles/527342/

● tree /sys/fs/cgroup/
● Devices implementation.
● Serge Hallyn nsexec

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 Capabilities - appendix
include/uapi/linux/capability.h

CAP_CHOWN CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE
CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH CAP_FOWNER
CAP_FSETID CAP_KILL
CAP_SETGID CAP_SETUID
CAP_SETPCAP CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE
CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE CAP_NET_BROADCAST
CAP_NET_ADMIN CAP_NET_RAW
CAP_IPC_LOCK CAP_IPC_OWNER
CAP_SYS_MODULE CAP_SYS_RAWIO
CAP_SYS_CHROOT CAP_SYS_PTRACE
CAP_SYS_PACCT CAP_SYS_ADMIN
CAP_SYS_BOOT CAP_SYS_NICE
CAP_SYS_RESOURCE CAP_SYS_TIME
CAP_SYS_TTY_CONFIG CAP_MKNOD
CAP_LEASE CAP_AUDIT_WRITE
CAP_AUDIT_CONTROL CAP_SETFCAP
CAP_MAC_OVERRIDE CAP_MAC_ADMIN
CAP_SYSLOG CAP_WAKE_ALARM
CAP_BLOCK_SUSPEND

See: man 8 setcap / man 8 getcap

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 Summary
● Namespaces
– Implementation
– UTS namespace
– Network Namespaces
● Example
– PID namespaces

● cgroups
– Cgroups and kernel namespaces
– CGROUPS VFS
– CPUSET
– cpuset example
– release_agent example
– memcg
– Notification API
– devices
– Libcgroup

● Checkpoint/Restart

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 Links

cgroups kernel mailing list archive:

http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.cgroups

cgroup git tree:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/cgroup.git

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Thank you!

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