I was building a kernel using "make -j 4" inside a unionfs, mounted on top of ext3. The kernel is vanilla 2.6.25-rc6 plus unionfs patches. At some point I forced a cache flush using "echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches" and I got the lockdep warning below. Note that unionfs doesn't appear to be involved in this lockdep warning at all, so I suspect this is probably an issue between jbd and ext3 directly. Let me know if I can be of more help. Cheers, Erez. [31270.749254] ======================================================= [31270.749473] [ INFO: possible circular locking dependency detected ] [31270.749720] 2.6.25-rc6-unionfs2 #69 [31270.749831] ------------------------------------------------------- [31270.749958] flush-caches.sh/9702 is trying to acquire lock: [31270.750171] (&journal->j_list_lock){--..}, at: [<c029ef6a>] journal_try_to_free_buffers+0xa5/0x158 [31270.751607] [31270.751607] but task is already holding lock: [31270.751607] (inode_lock){--..}, at: [<c02718bb>] drop_pagecache+0x45/0xd3 [31270.751607] [31270.751607] which lock already depends on the new lock. [31270.751607] [31270.751607] [31270.751607] the existing dependency chain (in reverse order) is: [31270.751607] [31270.751607] -> #1 (inode_lock){--..}: [31270.751607] [<c0231e01>] __lock_acquire+0x934/0xab8 [31270.751607] [<c0232307>] lock_acquire+0x4e/0x6a [31270.751607] [<c0395e33>] _spin_lock+0x23/0x32 [31270.751607] [<c02713d2>] __mark_inode_dirty+0xbe/0x134 [31270.751607] [<c0274b3a>] __set_page_dirty+0xdd/0xec [31270.751607] [<c0274ba9>] mark_buffer_dirty+0x60/0x63 [31270.751607] [<c029d2f6>] __journal_temp_unlink_buffer+0xc9/0xce [31270.751607] [<c029d43b>] __journal_unfile_buffer+0xb/0x15 [31270.751607] [<c029d487>] __journal_refile_buffer+0x42/0x8c [31270.751607] [<c029fdd1>] journal_commit_transaction+0xc59/0xe64 [31270.751607] [<c02a29f1>] kjournald+0xae/0x1b0 [31270.751607] [<c0228833>] kthread+0x3b/0x64 [31270.751607] [<c02039d3>] kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x10 [31270.751607] [<ffffffff>] 0xffffffff [31270.751607] [31270.751607] -> #0 (&journal->j_list_lock){--..}: [31270.751607] [<c0231d28>] __lock_acquire+0x85b/0xab8 [31270.751607] [<c0232307>] lock_acquire+0x4e/0x6a [31270.751607] [<c0395e33>] _spin_lock+0x23/0x32 [31270.751607] [<c029ef6a>] journal_try_to_free_buffers+0xa5/0x158 [31270.751607] [<c02925fe>] ext3_releasepage+0x53/0x5c [31270.751607] [<c023e4bd>] try_to_release_page+0x32/0x3f [31270.751607] [<c0243f59>] __invalidate_mapping_pages+0x69/0xc6 [31270.751607] [<c02718de>] drop_pagecache+0x68/0xd3 [31270.751607] [<c0271972>] drop_caches_sysctl_handler+0x29/0x3f [31270.751607] [<c0289383>] proc_sys_write+0x61/0x7e [31270.751607] [<c02594a1>] vfs_write+0x8c/0x108 [31270.751607] [<c0259a2b>] sys_write+0x3b/0x60 [31270.751607] [<c0202cee>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5f/0xa5 [31270.751607] [<ffffffff>] 0xffffffff [31270.751607] [31270.751607] other info that might help us debug this: [31270.751607] [31270.751607] 2 locks held by flush-caches.sh/9702: [31270.751607] #0: (&type->s_umount_key#12){----}, at: [<c02718ab>] drop_pagecache+0x35/0xd3 [31270.751607] #1: (inode_lock){--..}, at: [<c02718bb>] drop_pagecache+0x45/0xd3 [31270.751608] [31270.751608] stack backtrace: [31270.751608] Pid: 9702, comm: flush-caches.sh Not tainted 2.6.25-rc6-unionfs2 #69 [31270.751608] [<c0230687>] print_circular_bug_tail+0x5b/0x66 [31270.751608] [<c0231d28>] __lock_acquire+0x85b/0xab8 [31270.751608] [<c0232307>] lock_acquire+0x4e/0x6a [31270.751608] [<c029ef6a>] ? journal_try_to_free_buffers+0xa5/0x158 [31270.751608] [<c0395e33>] _spin_lock+0x23/0x32 [31270.751608] [<c029ef6a>] ? journal_try_to_free_buffers+0xa5/0x158 [31270.751608] [<c029ef6a>] journal_try_to_free_buffers+0xa5/0x158 [31270.751608] [<c02925fe>] ext3_releasepage+0x53/0x5c [31270.751608] [<c023e4bd>] try_to_release_page+0x32/0x3f [31270.751608] [<c0243f59>] __invalidate_mapping_pages+0x69/0xc6 [31270.751608] [<c02718de>] drop_pagecache+0x68/0xd3 [31270.751608] [<c0271972>] drop_caches_sysctl_handler+0x29/0x3f [31270.751608] [<c0289383>] proc_sys_write+0x61/0x7e [31270.751608] [<c0289322>] ? proc_sys_write+0x0/0x7e [31270.751608] [<c02594a1>] vfs_write+0x8c/0x108 [31270.751608] [<c0259a2b>] sys_write+0x3b/0x60 [31270.751608] [<c0202cee>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5f/0xa5 [31270.751608] ======================= -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ext4" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html