On 05/06/2020 22.18, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 7:23 AM Rasmus Villemoes > <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> + /* >> + * If the "group" and "other" permissions are the same, >> + * there's no point calling in_group_p() to decide which >> + * set to use. >> + */ >> + if ((((mode >> 3) ^ mode) & 7) && in_group_p(inode->i_gid)) >> mode >>= 3; > > Ugh. Not only is this ugly, but it's not even the best optimization. > > We don't care that group and other match exactly. We only care that > they match in the low 3 bits of the "mask" bits. Yes, I did think about that, but I thought this was the more obviously correct approach, and that in practice one only sees the 0X44 and 0X55 cases. > So if we want this optimization - and it sounds worth it - I think we > should do it right. But I also think it should be written more > legibly. > > And the "& 7" is the same "& (MAY_READ | MAY_WRITE | MAY_EXEC)" we do later. > > In other words, if we do this, I'd like it to be done even more > aggressively, but I'd also like the end result to be a lot more > readable and have more comments about why we do that odd thing. > > Something like this *UNTESTED* patch, perhaps? That will kinda work, except you do that mask &= MAY_RWX before check_acl(), which cares about MAY_NOT_BLOCK and who knows what other bits. > I might have gotten something wrong, so this would need > double-checking, but if it's right, I find it a _lot_ more easy to > understand than making one expression that is pretty complicated and > opaque. Well, I thought this was readable enough with the added comment. There's already that magic constant 3 in the shifts, so the 7 seemed entirely sensible, though one could spell it 0007. Whatever. Perhaps this? As a whole function, I think that's a bit easier for brain-storming. It's your patch, just with that rwx thing used instead of mask, except for the call to check_acl(). static int acl_permission_check(struct inode *inode, int mask) { unsigned int mode = inode->i_mode; unsigned int rwx = mask & (MAY_READ | MAY_WRITE | MAY_EXEC); /* Are we the owner? If so, ACL's don't matter */ if (likely(uid_eq(current_fsuid(), inode->i_uid))) { if ((rwx << 6) & ~mode) return -EACCES; return 0; } /* Do we have ACL's? */ if (IS_POSIXACL(inode) && (mode & S_IRWXG)) { int error = check_acl(inode, mask); if (error != -EAGAIN) return error; } /* * Are the group permissions different from * the other permissions in the bits we care * about? Need to check group ownership if so. */ if (rwx & (mode ^ (mode >> 3))) { if (in_group_p(inode->i_gid)) mode >>= 3; } /* Bits in 'mode' clear that we require? */ return (rwx & ~mode) ? -EACCES : 0; } Rasmus