Failed to join the user and pid namespaces of an existing runc container

[haiyanmeng]

I started a runc container first, then started another container. The second
container tried to join the user and pid namespace of the first container.

The first container got started successfully, however, the second container was
failed to be started with the following error:

[hmeng@localhost c2]$ sudo $(which runc) run test1
process_linux.go:245: running exec setns process for init caused "exit status 1"

The strace log of the second container shows that setns failed to join the
user namespace of the first container.

Here is config.json of the first container:
https://github.com/hmeng-19/logs/blob/master/runc_ns/c1/config.json

Here is config.json of the second container:
https://github.com/hmeng-19/logs/blob/master/runc_ns/c2/config.json

Here is the strace log of the second container:
https://github.com/hmeng-19/logs/blob/master/runc_ns/strace.log

The rootfs I used for both of the two container are the busybox one:

docker export $(docker create busybox) | tar -C rootfs -xvf -

I am running Fedora 23 (Workstation Edition), and here is the kernel info:

[hmeng@localhost c2]$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 4.6.4-201.fc23.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Jul 12 11:43:59 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I am testing runc using the latest master branch:

commit 7b06cc02c7e777ac2cf2013910fcd487089a7055
Merge: bd1d3ac f2c4c4a
Author: Mrunal Patel <mrunal@me.com>
Date:   Wed Jul 20 08:35:45 2016 -0700

    Merge pull request #957 from zhaoleidd/fix_exec_test_output

    integration_testing: Fix a output typo

[haiyanmeng]

@mrunalp , PTAL.

[cyphar]

@hmeng-19 Can you please try running your test again with the #950 patchset applied (it adds some debugging information so we can tell where nsenter fails). Also, if you want to use strace with runc, please always use strace -f.

[haiyanmeng]

@cyphar , thanks for pointing out. I will give it a try.

[mrunalp]

I just tried this out on Fedora 23 and it worked for me with runc master. Looking at your configs to see if anything is amiss.

[mrunalp]

You can see that they are sharing user/pid namespaces.

Container 1:

[root@localhost test]# ocitools generate --tty --output=config.json
[root@localhost test]# ocitools generate --tty --output=config.json --uidmappings=0:0:1024 --gidmappings=0:0:1024
[root@localhost test]# runc run 1234
/ # id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root)
/ # cat /proc/self/uid_map 
         0          0       1024
/ # 
/ # 
/ # ps
PID   USER     COMMAND
    1 root     sh
    7 root     sh
   15 root     ps
/ # ls -l /proc/1/ns
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:52 ipc -> ipc:[4026532230]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:52 mnt -> mnt:[4026532228]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:52 net -> net:[4026532233]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:52 pid -> pid:[4026532231]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:52 user -> user:[4026532226]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:52 uts -> uts:[4026532229]
/ # 
/ # 
/ # ps
PID   USER     COMMAND
    1 root     sh
   21 root     sh
   27 root     ps
/ # 

Container 2:

[root@localhost enter]#  ocitools generate --tty --output=config.json --uidmappings=0:0:1024 --gidmappings=0:0:1024  --output=config.json --pid /proc/15200/ns/pid  --user /proc/15200/ns/user
[root@localhost enter]# runc run 3434
/ # ps -ef
PID   USER     COMMAND
    1 root     sh
   21 root     sh
   25 root     ps -ef
/ # ls -l /proc/21/ns
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:56 ipc -> ipc:[4026532295]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:56 mnt -> mnt:[4026532293]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:56 net -> net:[4026532297]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:56 pid -> pid:[4026532231]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:56 user -> user:[4026532226]
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             0 Jul 20 22:56 uts -> uts:[4026532294]
/ # 

[cyphar]

@hmeng-19 I think the issue is that you're manually setting the /proc/pid/ns/... path in the config. This will change with every run of the first container:

"path": "/proc/5736/ns/pid"

[haiyanmeng]

@cyphar , every time I would use ps to find the pid of the first container, and replace the pid in the config.json file for the second container.

[wking]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 04:02:58PM -0700, Aleksa Sarai wrote:

@hmeng-19 I think the issue is that you're manually setting the
/proc/pid/ns/... path in the config.

This will get easier if we can land opencontainers/runtime-tools#54 ;).

[haiyanmeng]

@mrunalp , I tried the commands you provided and still got the same error.

[wking]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 03:27:14PM -0700, hmeng-19 wrote:

[hmeng@localhost c2]$ sudo $(which runc) run test1
process_linux.go:245: running exec setns process for init caused "exit status 1"

The strace log of the second container shows that setns failed to
join the user namespace of the first container.

Shouldn't runC be joining the user namespace first? The strace has
1:

5874 open("/proc/5736/ns/pid", O_RDONLY) = 5
5874 open("/proc/5736/ns/user", O_RDONLY) = 6
5874 setns(5, 0) = 0
5874 close(5) = 0
5874 setns(6, 0) = -1 EINVAL (Invalid argument)

See also 2 about join order. On the other hand, if you're root in
the host namespace, then that probably doesn't matter.

setns(2) has a few possible reasons for EINVAL, including:

• The caller attempted to join the user namespace in which it is
  already a member.

• The caller shares filesystem (CLONE_FS) state (in particular, the
  root directory) with other processes and tried to join a new user
  namespace.

• The caller is multithreaded and tried to join a new user namespace.

  Subject: [Linux] Specify namespace-joining order? (can be important for user
  namespaces)
  Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 21:53:00 -0700
  Message-ID: 20160419045300.GT23066@odin.tremily.us

[cyphar]

@wking Okay, then this is tangentially related to #959. As I said in that PR, there are quite a few nsenter fixes that are still in my rootless containers patchset but will definitely be useful for others. I plan to port all of these fixes to #950 very soon.

[haiyanmeng]

@cyphar , I tested my problem using #950 . It seems that the problem still exists. I am wondering whether my kernel is broken somehow.

[cyphar]

@hmeng-19 I just ported the fix. Please try again with 8a454e5.

[haiyanmeng]

@cyphar , I tried 8a454e5 .
unshare succeeded, but it failed to write uid_map into proc/self/uid_map. Therefore, runc run test failed when I tried to start the first container.
Here is the strace log:
https://github.com/hmeng-19/logs/blob/master/runc_ns/log