hermit-os/uhyve

Prevent hypercall handling from panicking

Open

#631 opened on Jan 31, 2024

View on GitHub
 (7 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Rust (35 forks)auto 404
feature/uhyve-interfacehelp wanted

Repository metrics

Stars
 (293 stars)
PR merge metrics
 (Avg merge 15h 22m) (29 merged PRs in 30d)

Description

A panic in the hypercall causes uhyve to hang indefinitely, as only the specific CPU thread will panic, and all other threads are still waiting for the barrier in https://github.com/hermit-os/uhyve/blob/360b613ee7498d0a1b651399f27fb6f5460497ad/src/linux/mod.rs#L137 to pass, which never happens as the thread that could activate it has paniced. We should remove any unwrap() or expect() in the code that is called by run.

Contributor guide

Research direction
Inspect the hypercall handling code in the run function of uhyve (likely in src/linux/mod.rs or similar) and replace every unwrap() or expect() with proper error handling (e.g., using match or ? operator) to prevent panics that can cause deadlocks.
Tech stack
rust
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Mostly clear
Prerequisites
Rust
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
60