From: David Meybohm With CONFIG_PREEMPT && !CONFIG_SMP, it's possible for sys_getppid to return a bogus value if the parent's task_struct gets reallocated after current->group_leader->real_parent is read: asmlinkage long sys_getppid(void) { int pid; struct task_struct *me = current; struct task_struct *parent; parent = me->group_leader->real_parent; RACE HERE => for (;;) { pid = parent->tgid; #ifdef CONFIG_SMP { struct task_struct *old = parent; /* * Make sure we read the pid before re-reading the * parent pointer: */ smp_rmb(); parent = me->group_leader->real_parent; if (old != parent) continue; } #endif break; } return pid; } If the process gets preempted at the indicated point, the parent process can go ahead and call exit() and then get wait()'d on to reap its task_struct. When the preempted process gets resumed, it will not do any further checks of the parent pointer on !CONFIG_SMP: it will read the bad pid and return. So, the same algorithm used when SMP is enabled should be used when preempt is enabled, which will recheck ->real_parent in this case. Signed-off-by: David Meybohm Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton --- kernel/timer.c | 2 +- 1 files changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff -puN kernel/timer.c~preempt-race-in-getppid kernel/timer.c --- 25/kernel/timer.c~preempt-race-in-getppid Mon Aug 22 13:06:44 2005 +++ 25-akpm/kernel/timer.c Mon Aug 22 13:06:44 2005 @@ -1023,7 +1023,7 @@ asmlinkage long sys_getppid(void) parent = me->group_leader->real_parent; for (;;) { pid = parent->tgid; -#ifdef CONFIG_SMP +#if defined(CONFIG_SMP) || defined(CONFIG_PREEMPT) { struct task_struct *old = parent; _