eventpoll: document loop-check / path-check globals

The globals that support EPOLL_CTL_ADD's cycle and path-length checks
are scattered: epnested_mutex, loop_check_gen, inserting_into, and
tfile_check_list sit at the top of the file; path_count[] and
path_limits[] are declared inline with the path-check code further
down. Their interaction -- the "ep->gen == loop_check_gen" trigger in
do_epoll_ctl(), the two loop_check_gen++ bumps that sandwich a check,
the EP_UNACTIVE_PTR sentinel on tfile_check_list, the -ELOOP back-edge
detection via inserting_into -- is not documented anywhere.

The area has had three recent fixes (CVE-2025-38349, the unbounded
recursion fix, and the overflow fix) whose logic depends on these
invariants. Collect the description in one block alongside the
declarations, cross-reference the path_count[] declaration that lives
with the path-check code, and name the fix commits so future readers
can find the context.

Also add a short comment on struct epitems_head describing its
dual use (wrapper for non-epoll file->f_ep versus pointing into
&ep->refs for the epoll-watches-epoll case), which the old comment
on tfile_check_list had accidentally attached to the struct.

Comment-only; no functional change.

Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner (Amutable) <brauner@kernel.org>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260424-work-epoll-rework-v1-2-249ed00a20f3@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
This commit is contained in:
Christian Brauner 2026-04-24 15:46:33 +02:00
commit 35e7fa083a
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