Re: [PATCH v2] coredump: Use vmsplice_to_pipe() for pipes in dump_emit_page()

From: Al Viro
Date: Fri Nov 18 2022 - 23:47:20 EST


On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 02:03:49PM -0700, Peilin Ye wrote:

> + n = vmsplice_to_pipe(file, &iter, 0);
> + if (n == -EBADF)
> + n = __kernel_write_iter(cprm->file, &iter, &pos);

Yuck. If anything, I would rather put a flag into coredump_params
and check it instead; this check for -EBADF is both unidiomatic and
brittle. Suppose someday somebody looks at vmsplice(2) and
decides that it would make sense to lift the "is it a pipe" check
into e.g. vmsplice_type(). There's no obvious reasons not to,
unless one happens to know that coredump relies upon that check done
in vmsplice_to_pipe(). It's asking for trouble several years down
the road.

Make it explicit and independent from details of error checking
in vmsplice(2).