On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 01:04:25PM +0800, Gao Xiang wrote: > > diff --git a/fs/ext4/dir.c b/fs/ext4/dir.c > > index 8964778aabefb..0129d14629881 100644 > > --- a/fs/ext4/dir.c > > +++ b/fs/ext4/dir.c > > @@ -671,9 +671,11 @@ static int ext4_d_compare(const struct dentry *dentry, unsigned int len, > > const char *str, const struct qstr *name) > > { > > struct qstr qstr = {.name = str, .len = len }; > > - struct inode *inode = dentry->d_parent->d_inode; > > + const struct dentry *parent = READ_ONCE(dentry->d_parent); > > I'm not sure if we really need READ_ONCE d_parent here (p.s. d_parent > won't be NULL anyway), and d_seq will guard all its validity. If I'm > wrong, correct me kindly... > > Otherwise, it looks good to me... > Reviewed-by: Gao Xiang <gaoxiang25@xxxxxxxxxx> > While d_parent can't be set to NULL, it can still be changed concurrently. So we need READ_ONCE() to ensure that a consistent value is used. - Eric