Linux: on attach, attach to lwps listed under /proc/$pid/task/

... instead of relying on libthread_db.

I wrote a test that attaches to a program that constantly spawns
short-lived threads, which exposed several issues.  This is one of
them.

On Linux, we need to attach to all threads of a process (thread group)
individually.  We currently rely on libthread_db to list the threads,
but that is problematic, because libthread_db relies on reading data
structures out of the inferior (which may well be corrupted).  If
threads are being created or exiting just while we try to attach, we
may trip on inconsistencies in the inferior's thread list.  To work
around that, when we see a seemingly corrupt list, we currently retry
a few times:

 static void
 thread_db_find_new_threads_2 (ptid_t ptid, int until_no_new)
 {
 ...
   if (until_no_new)
     {
       /* Require 4 successive iterations which do not find any new threads.
	  The 4 is a heuristic: there is an inherent race here, and I have
	  seen that 2 iterations in a row are not always sufficient to
	  "capture" all threads.  */
 ...

That heuristic may well fail, and when it does, we end up with threads
in the program that aren't under GDB's control.  That's obviously bad
and results in quite mistifying failures, like e.g., the process dying
for seeminly no reason when a thread that wasn't attached trips on a
breakpoint.

There's really no reason to rely on libthread_db for this nowadays
when we have /proc mounted.  In that case, which is the usual case, we
can list the LWPs from /proc/PID/task/.  In fact, GDBserver is already
doing this.  The patch factors out that code that knows to walk the
task/ directory out of GDBserver, and makes GDB use it too.

Like GDBserver, the patch makes GDB attach to LWPs and _not_ wait for
them to stop immediately.  Instead, we just tag the LWP as having an
expected stop.  Because we can only set the ptrace options when the
thread stops, we need a new flag in the lwp structure to keep track of
whether we've already set the ptrace options, just like in GDBserver.
Note that nothing issues any ptrace command to the threads between the
PTRACE_ATTACH and the stop, so this is safe (unlike one scenario
described in gdbserver's linux-low.c).

When we attach to a program that has threads exiting while we attach,
it's easy to race with a thread just exiting as we try to attach to
it, like:

  #1 - get current list of threads
  #2 - attach to each listed thread
  #3 - ooops, attach failed, thread is already gone

As this is pretty normal, we shouldn't be issuing a scary warning in
step #3.

When #3 happens, PTRACE_ATTACH usually fails with ESRCH, but sometimes
we'll see EPERM as well.  That happens when the kernel still has the
thread in its task list, but the thread is marked as dead.
Unfortunately, EPERM is ambiguous and we'll get it also on other
scenarios where the thread isn't dead, and in those cases, it's useful
to get a warning.  To distiguish the cases, when we get an EPERM
failure, we open /proc/PID/status, and check the thread's state -- if
the /proc file no longer exists, or the state is "Z (Zombie)" or "X
(Dead)", we ignore the EPERM error silently; otherwise, we'll warn.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a kernel race here.  Sometimes I get
EPERM, and then the /proc state still indicates "R (Running)"...  If
we wait a bit and retry, we do end up seeing X or Z state, or get an
ESRCH.  I thought of making GDB retry the attach a few times, but even
with a 500ms wait and 4 retries, I still see the warning sometimes.  I
haven't been able to identify the kernel path that causes this yet,
but in any case, it looks like a kernel bug to me.  As this just
results failure to suppress a warning that we've been printing since
about forever anyway, I'm just making the test cope with it, and issue
an XFAIL.

gdb/gdbserver/
2015-01-09  Pedro Alves  <palves@redhat.com>

	* linux-low.c (linux_attach_fail_reason_string): Move to
	nat/linux-ptrace.c, and rename.
	(linux_attach_lwp): Update comment.
	(attach_proc_task_lwp_callback): New function.
	(linux_attach): Adjust to rename and use
	linux_proc_attach_tgid_threads.
	(linux_attach_fail_reason_string): Delete declaration.

gdb/
2015-01-09  Pedro Alves  <palves@redhat.com>

	* linux-nat.c (attach_proc_task_lwp_callback): New function.
	(linux_nat_attach): Use linux_proc_attach_tgid_threads.
	(wait_lwp, linux_nat_filter_event): If not set yet, set the lwp's
	ptrace option flags.
	* linux-nat.h (struct lwp_info) <must_set_ptrace_flags>: New
	field.
	* nat/linux-procfs.c: Include <dirent.h>.
	(linux_proc_get_int): New parameter "warn".  Handle it.
	(linux_proc_get_tgid): Adjust.
	(linux_proc_get_tracerpid): Rename to ...
	(linux_proc_get_tracerpid_nowarn): ... this.
	(linux_proc_pid_get_state): New function, factored out from
	(linux_proc_pid_has_state): ... this.  Add new parameter "warn"
	and handle it.
	(linux_proc_pid_is_gone): New function.
	(linux_proc_pid_is_stopped): Adjust.
	(linux_proc_pid_is_zombie_maybe_warn)
	(linux_proc_pid_is_zombie_nowarn): New functions.
	(linux_proc_pid_is_zombie): Use
	linux_proc_pid_is_zombie_maybe_warn.
	(linux_proc_attach_tgid_threads): New function.
	* nat/linux-procfs.h (linux_proc_get_tgid): Update comment.
	(linux_proc_get_tracerpid): Rename to ...
	(linux_proc_get_tracerpid_nowarn): ... this, and update comment.
	(linux_proc_pid_is_gone): New declaration.
	(linux_proc_pid_is_zombie): Update comment.
	(linux_proc_pid_is_zombie_nowarn): New declaration.
	(linux_proc_attach_lwp_func): New typedef.
	(linux_proc_attach_tgid_threads): New declaration.
	* nat/linux-ptrace.c (linux_ptrace_attach_fail_reason): Adjust to
	use nowarn functions.
	(linux_ptrace_attach_fail_reason_string): Move here from
	gdbserver/linux-low.c and rename.
	(ptrace_supports_feature): If the current ptrace options are not
	known yet, check them now, instead of asserting.
	* nat/linux-ptrace.h (linux_ptrace_attach_fail_reason_string):
	Declare.

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/gdb/gdbserver/thread-db.c b/gdb/gdbserver/thread-db.c
index 71bc984..4e0d32a 100644
--- a/gdb/gdbserver/thread-db.c
+++ b/gdb/gdbserver/thread-db.c
@@ -339,7 +339,7 @@ attach_thread (const td_thrhandle_t *th_p, td_thrinfo_t *ti_p)
     {
       warning ("Could not attach to thread %ld (LWP %d): %s\n",
 	       ti_p->ti_tid, ti_p->ti_lid,
-	       linux_attach_fail_reason_string (ptid, err));
+	       linux_ptrace_attach_fail_reason_string (ptid, err));
       return 0;
     }