Running generic/475(filesystem consistent tests after power cut) could easily trigger unattached inode error while doing fsck: Unattached zero-length inode 39405. Clear? no Unattached inode 39405 Connect to /lost+found? no Above inconsistence is caused by following process: P1 P2 ext4_create inode = ext4_new_inode_start_handle // itable records nlink=1 ext4_add_nondir err = ext4_add_entry // ENOSPC ext4_append ext4_bread ext4_getblk ext4_map_blocks // returns ENOSPC drop_nlink(inode) // won't be updated into disk inode ext4_orphan_add(handle, inode) ext4_orphan_file_add ext4_journal_stop(handle) jbd2_journal_commit_transaction // commit success >> power cut << ext4_fill_super ext4_load_and_init_journal // itable records nlink=1 ext4_orphan_cleanup ext4_process_orphan if (inode->i_nlink) // true, inode won't be deleted Then, allocated inode will be reserved on disk and corresponds to no dentries, so e2fsck reports 'unattached inode' problem. The problem won't happen if orphan file feature is disabled, because ext4_orphan_add() will update disk inode in orphan list mode. There are several places not updating disk inode while putting inode into orphan area, such as ext4_add_nondir(), ext4_symlink() and whiteout in ext4_rename(). Fix it by updating inode into disk in all error branches of these places. Link: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=217605 Fixes: 02f310fcf47f ("ext4: Speedup ext4 orphan inode handling") Signed-off-by: Zhihao Cheng <chengzhihao1@xxxxxxxxxx> --- fs/ext4/namei.c | 3 +++ 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+) diff --git a/fs/ext4/namei.c b/fs/ext4/namei.c index 0caf6c730ce3..6bcc3770ee19 100644 --- a/fs/ext4/namei.c +++ b/fs/ext4/namei.c @@ -2799,6 +2799,7 @@ static int ext4_add_nondir(handle_t *handle, return err; } drop_nlink(inode); + ext4_mark_inode_dirty(handle, inode); ext4_orphan_add(handle, inode); unlock_new_inode(inode); return err; @@ -3436,6 +3437,7 @@ static int ext4_symlink(struct mnt_idmap *idmap, struct inode *dir, err_drop_inode: clear_nlink(inode); + ext4_mark_inode_dirty(handle, inode); ext4_orphan_add(handle, inode); unlock_new_inode(inode); if (handle) @@ -4021,6 +4023,7 @@ static int ext4_rename(struct mnt_idmap *idmap, struct inode *old_dir, ext4_resetent(handle, &old, old.inode->i_ino, old_file_type); drop_nlink(whiteout); + ext4_mark_inode_dirty(handle, whiteout); ext4_orphan_add(handle, whiteout); } unlock_new_inode(whiteout); -- 2.39.2