Merge tag 'v6.4/kernel.user_worker' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/brauner/linux

Pull user work thread updates from Christian Brauner:
 "This contains the work generalizing the ability to create a kernel
  worker from a userspace process.

  Such user workers will run with the same credentials as the userspace
  process they were created from providing stronger security and
  accounting guarantees than the traditional override_creds() approach
  ever could've hoped for.

  The original work was heavily based and optimzed for the needs of
  io_uring which was the first user. However, as it quickly turned out
  the ability to create user workers inherting properties from a
  userspace process is generally useful.

  The vhost subsystem currently creates workers using the kthread api.
  The consequences of using the kthread api are that RLIMITs don't work
  correctly as they are inherited from khtreadd. This leads to bugs
  where more workers are created than would be allowed by the RLIMITs of
  the userspace process in lieu of which workers are created.

  Problems like this disappear with user workers created from the
  userspace processes for which they perform the work. In addition,
  providing this api allows vhost to remove additional complexity. For
  example, cgroup and mm sharing will just work out of the box with user
  workers based on the relevant userspace process instead of manually
  ensuring the correct cgroup and mm contexts are used.

  So the vhost subsystem should simply be made to use the same mechanism
  as io_uring. To this end the original mechanism used for
  create_io_thread() is generalized into user workers:

   - Introduce PF_USER_WORKER as a generic indicator that a given task
     is a user worker, i.e., a kernel task that was created from a
     userspace process. Now a PF_IO_WORKER thread is just a specialized
     version of PF_USER_WORKER. So io_uring io workers raise both flags.

   - Make copy_process() available to core kernel code

   - Extend struct kernel_clone_args with the following bitfields
     allowing to indicate to copy_process():
       - to create a user worker (raise PF_USER_WORKER)
       - to not inherit any files from the userspace process
       - to ignore signals

  After all generic changes are in place the vhost subsystem implements
  a new dedicated vhost api based on user workers. Finally, vhost is
  switched to rely on the new api moving it off of kthreads.

  Thanks to Mike for sticking it out and making it through this rather
  arduous journey"

* tag 'v6.4/kernel.user_worker' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/brauner/linux:
  vhost: use vhost_tasks for worker threads
  vhost: move worker thread fields to new struct
  vhost_task: Allow vhost layer to use copy_process
  fork: allow kernel code to call copy_process
  fork: Add kernel_clone_args flag to ignore signals
  fork: add kernel_clone_args flag to not dup/clone files
  fork/vm: Move common PF_IO_WORKER behavior to new flag
  kernel: Make io_thread and kthread bit fields
  kthread: Pass in the thread's name during creation
  kernel: Allow a kernel thread's name to be set in copy_process
  csky: Remove kernel_thread declaration

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/MAINTAINERS b/MAINTAINERS
index 4ae3bb24af1f..14fadebf42fd 100644
--- a/MAINTAINERS
+++ b/MAINTAINERS
@@ -22177,7 +22177,9 @@ L:	virtualization@lists.linux-foundation.org
 L:	netdev@vger.kernel.org
 S:	Maintained
 T:	git git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mst/vhost.git
+F:	kernel/vhost_task.c
 F:	drivers/vhost/
+F:	include/linux/sched/vhost_task.h
 F:	include/linux/vhost_iotlb.h
 F:	include/uapi/linux/vhost.h