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Bug #42064 exec() deadlocks if another thread is waiting for a file lock
Submitted: 2007-07-22 02:50 UTC Modified: 2007-10-22 11:31 UTC
Votes:1
Avg. Score:5.0 ± 0.0
Reproduced:1 of 1 (100.0%)
Same Version:0 (0.0%)
Same OS:1 (100.0%)
From: tstarling at wikimedia dot org Assigned:
Status: Not a bug Package: Filesystem function related
PHP Version: 5.2.3 OS: win32 only
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
 [2007-07-22 02:50 UTC] tstarling at wikimedia dot org
Description:
------------
This appears to be Win32 specific.

The shell execution functions, exec(), passthru(), etc., deadlock if another thread in the same server is waiting for a file lock.

The most common type of file lock is a lock on a session file, that's where I saw this first. But I could reproduce it with flock() instead of session_start().

The typical way for this to manifest itself is if a browser sends two requests to PHP concurrently, with the same session ID. One request runs first, the other one blocks waiting for a lock on the session file. Then if the running request tries to run exec(), it deadlocks and both threads wait forever. 

Tested with both Apache 2.0.54 (mpm_winnt) and 1.3.28. I also had a colleague confirm it on an independent system. 

Reproduce code:
---------------
<?php
if ( isset( $_REQUEST['f'] ) ) {
	$f = fopen( 'blah', 'w' );
	flock( $f, LOCK_EX );
	sleep( 1 );
	passthru( "echo Hello" );
} else {
	$self = $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'];
	echo <<<EOT
<html>
<frameset rows="50%, 50%">
<frame src="$self?f=1"/>
<frame src="$self?f=2"/>
</frameset>
</html>
EOT;
}
?>


Expected result:
----------------
The two frames should both display "Hello", after a delay of 2 seconds.

Actual result:
--------------
The frames take forever to load. Requires a force quit of Apache. 

Patches

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 [2007-07-22 15:30 UTC] jani@php.net
Isn't this just expected behaviour if you're not checking whether the flock call fails or not??
 [2007-07-22 18:44 UTC] tstarling at wikimedia dot org
I don't really understand what you mean, but I'll take a few guesses:

* flock alone is working perfectly, it does not fail. If you replace the passthru() with print(), then the whole thing will work as expected. 
* The problem doesn't appear to be that passthru() is globally synchronised. The second thread never gets to the passthru() call, you could remove it altogether for f=2 and you would still see the deadlock.
* This bug provides the possibility for a DoS attack against any script that calls session_start() followed by a shell execution function. max_execution_time is ignored. Are you telling me that the expected behaviour for this simple script:

<?php session_start(); sleep(1); passthru('hello');?> 

is to consistently deadlock on Windows whenever concurrent requests are sent?
 [2007-10-22 11:31 UTC] jani@php.net
You should call session_write_close() whenever you have something like frames / simultaneous connections to same stuff using same session id.
I bumped into similar deadlock issue myself but it was easily solved by calling session_write_close() before doing file_get_contents(). 

Expected behaviour -> not bug.
 
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