Workaround: avoid sleep(1) call by crypt_r

Using an off-cpu flamegraph I identified that concurrent PAM calls are slow due to a call to `sleep(1)`.
`pam_authenticate` calls `crypt_r` which calls `NSSLOW_Init` which on first use will try to initialize the just `dlopen`-ed library.
If it encounters a race condition it does a `sleep(1)`. This race condition can be quite reliably reproduced when performing a lot of PAM authentications from multiple threads in parallel.

GDB can also be used to confirm this by putting a breakpoint on `sleep`:
```
 #0  __sleep (seconds=seconds@entry=1) at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/sleep.c:42
 #1  0x00007ffff1548e22 in freebl_RunLoaderOnce () at lowhash_vector.c:122
 #2  0x00007ffff1548f31 in freebl_InitVector () at lowhash_vector.c:131
 #3  NSSLOW_Init () at lowhash_vector.c:148
 #4  0x00007ffff1b8f09a in __sha512_crypt_r (key=key@entry=0x7fffd8005a60 "pamtest-edvint", salt=0x7ffff31e17b8 "dIJbsXKc0",
 xapi-project#5  0x00007ffff1b8d070 in __crypt_r (key=key@entry=0x7fffd8005a60 "pamtest-edvint", salt=<optimized out>,
 xapi-project#6  0x00007ffff1dc9abc in verify_pwd_hash (p=p@entry=0x7fffd8005a60 "pamtest-edvint", hash=<optimized out>, nullok=nullok@entry=0) at passverify.c:111
 xapi-project#7  0x00007ffff1dc9139 in _unix_verify_password (pamh=pamh@entry=0x7fffd8002910, name=0x7fffd8002ab0 "pamtest-edvint", p=0x7fffd8005a60 "pamtest-edvint", ctrl=ctrl@entry=8389156) at support.c:777
 xapi-project#8  0x00007ffff1dc6556 in pam_sm_authenticate (pamh=0x7fffd8002910, flags=<optimized out>, argc=<optimized out>, argv=<optimized out>) at pam_unix_auth.c:178
 xapi-project#9  0x00007ffff7bcef1a in _pam_dispatch_aux (use_cached_chain=<optimized out>, resumed=<optimized out>, h=<optimized out>, flags=1, pamh=0x7fffd8002910) at pam_dispatch.c:110
 xapi-project#10 _pam_dispatch (pamh=pamh@entry=0x7fffd8002910, flags=1, choice=choice@entry=1) at pam_dispatch.c:426
 xapi-project#11 0x00007ffff7bce7e0 in pam_authenticate (pamh=0x7fffd8002910, flags=flags@entry=1) at pam_auth.c:34
 xapi-project#12 0x00000000005ae567 in XA_mh_authorize (username=username@entry=0x7fffd80028d0 "pamtest-edvint", password=password@entry=0x7fffd80028f0 "pamtest-edvint", error=error@entry=0x7ffff31e1be8) at xa_auth.c:83
 xapi-project#13 0x00000000005adf20 in stub_XA_mh_authorize (username=<optimized out>, password=<optimized out>) at xa_auth_stubs.c:42
 xapi-project#14 0x00000000004a0a6a in camlDune__exe__Bench_pam__pam_authenticate$27_320 () at ocaml/tests/bench/pam/bench_pam.ml:63
 xapi-project#15 0x00000000004a1113 in camlEzbechamel_concurrent__worker_loop_359 () at ocaml/tests/bench/lib/concurrent/ezbechamel_concurrent.ml:36
 xapi-project#16 0x00000000005935b9 in camlStdlib__Fun__protect_317 ()
 xapi-project#17 0x00000000004a1955 in camlThread__fun_850 ()
 xapi-project#18 0x00000000005d6401 in caml_start_program ()
 xapi-project#19 0x00000000005cd0fd in caml_callback_exn ()
 xapi-project#20 0x00000000005af810 in caml_thread_start ()
 xapi-project#21 0x00007ffff79b7e25 in start_thread (arg=0x7ffff31e2700) at pthread_create.c:308
 xapi-project#22 0x00007ffff71dbbad in clone () at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/x86_64/clone.S:113
```

`pam_start` and `pam_end` doesn't help here, because on `pam_end` the library is `dlclose`-ed, so on next `pam_authenticate` it will have to go through the initialization code again.
(This initialization code would've belonged into `pam_start`, not `pam_authenticate`, but there are several layers here including a call to `crypt_r`).

To avoid this link with `libcrypt` and call `crypt_r` once ourselves (and ensure it loads `libfreeblpriv3` by using the sha512 prefix).
That way the library will stay loaded (we'll hold a reference count on it), and the `dlclose` done by PAM won't unload it.

Confirmed that there are no `sleep` calls now, and the results are also visible when running the benchmark targeted to the with and without fix code:
```
╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────╮
│name                                             │  major-allocated          │  minor-allocated          │  monotonic-clock          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┤
│  concurrent authenticate (sleep fix, actual):8  │             0.0000 mjw/run│            50.0000 mnw/run│       27043467.0000 ns/run│
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────╯

╭────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────╮
│name                                    │  major-allocated          │  minor-allocated          │  monotonic-clock          │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┤
│  concurrent authenticate (no reuse):8  │             0.0000 mjw/run│            50.0000 mnw/run│     1029831372.0000 ns/run│
╰────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────╯
```

Without this fix using 2 threads to perform PAM authentication would result in a 38x slowdown compared to using no threads at all (which is what XAPI currently does).

Signed-off-by: Edwin Török <[email protected]>

Author: edwintorok

ocaml/auth/dune

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
     (names xa_auth xa_auth_stubs)
   )
   (name pam)
-  (c_library_flags -lpam)
+  (c_library_flags -lpam -lcrypt)
   (libraries threads.posix)
   (wrapped false)
 )

ocaml/auth/pam.ml

@@ -50,3 +50,5 @@ let authorize_stop t =
 let authorize_run t username password =
   let handle = check_handle t in
   authorize_run handle username password
+
+external workaround : unit -> unit = "stub_XA_workaround"

ocaml/auth/xa_auth_stubs.c

@@ -11,8 +11,9 @@
  * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  * GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
  */
-/*
- */
+
+/* must be at the beginning, it affects defines in other headers that cannot be reenabled later */
+#define _GNU_SOURCE
 
 #include <unistd.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
@@ -142,6 +143,23 @@ CAMLprim value stub_XA_mh_authorize_run(value ml_handle, value username, value p
         caml_failwith(error ? error : "Unknown error");
     CAMLreturn(ret);
 }
+
+#include <crypt.h>
+CAMLprim value stub_XA_workaround(value u)
+{
+  CAMLparam1(u);
+  struct crypt_data data;
+  memset(&data, 0, sizeof(data));
+
+  /* When called with '$6$' it will call sha512_crypt_r which will call NSSLOW_Init, which initializes the library,
+     and avoids the sleep() call that would otherwise happen when the library is initialized in parallel.
+     We don't want to link with libfreebl3 directly, because in the future we might switch to using libxcrypt.
+   */
+  crypt_r("", "$6$", &data);
+  
+  CAMLreturn(Val_unit);
+}
+
 /*
  * Local variables:
  * mode: C

ocaml/tests/bench/pam/bench_pam.ml

@@ -38,15 +38,12 @@ let pam_run h =
   Pam.authorize_run h username password
 
 let sleepfix_start () =
+  (* FIXME: this adds a 5s pause on startup, any way to initialize the code but not incurr the fail delay? *)
   (* To avoid the sleep(1) in the libgcrypt/NSS initialization code that gets called from Pam.authorize_run create and run a fake auth command,
      and keep the handle open
  *)
+  Pam.workaround ();
   let h = Pam.authorize_start ()  in
-  let () =
-    try Pam.authorize_run h "" ""
-    with Failure _ -> ()
-  in
-  (* h is not valid to use anymore! *)
   h
 
 let sleepfix_stop = Pam.authorize_stop