ptrace: permit ptracing of /sbin/init

Afaics, currently there are no kernel problems with ptracing init, it can't
lose SIGNAL_UNKILLABLE flag and be killed/stopped by accident.

The ability to strace/debug init can be very useful if you try to figure out
why it does not work as expected.

However, admin should know what he does, "gdb /sbin/init 1" stops init, it
can't reap orphaned zombies or take care of /etc/inittab until continued.  It
is even possible to crash init (and thus the whole system) if you wish,
ptracer has full control.

See also the long discussion: http://marc.info/?t=120628018600001

Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Roland McGrath <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Pavel Emelyanov <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>

diff --git a/kernel/ptrace.c b/kernel/ptrace.c
index 5f8d452e8111b7a2e67b1de14b50ec544c22bfa1..dcc199c43a12abcb9e62b4a70e090084d3075fa4 100644 (file)
--- a/kernel/ptrace.c
+++ b/kernel/ptrace.c
@@ -168,8 +168,6 @@ int ptrace_attach(struct task_struct *task)
        audit_ptrace(task);
 
        retval = -EPERM;
-       if (task->pid <= 1)
-               goto out;
        if (same_thread_group(task, current))
                goto out;
 
@@ -521,12 +519,6 @@ struct task_struct *ptrace_get_task_struct(pid_t pid)
 {
        struct task_struct *child;
 
-       /*
-        * Tracing init is not allowed.
-        */
-       if (pid == 1)
-               return ERR_PTR(-EPERM);
-
        read_lock(&tasklist_lock);
        child = find_task_by_vpid(pid);
        if (child)