> The only problem is that test_bit doesn't provide any memory barriers. > Should we add the barrier to buffer_locked() instead of wait_on_buffer()? > Perhaps it would fix more bugs - in reiserfs, there's this piece of code: Her I'm sending the second version of the patch that changes buffer_locked to provide an acquire semantics. Mikulas From: Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka@xxxxxxxxxx> Let's have a look at this piece of code in __bread_slow: get_bh(bh); bh->b_end_io = end_buffer_read_sync; submit_bh(REQ_OP_READ, 0, bh); wait_on_buffer(bh); if (buffer_uptodate(bh)) return bh; Neither wait_on_buffer nor buffer_uptodate contain any memory barrier. Consequently, if someone calls sb_bread and then reads the buffer data, the read of buffer data may be executed before wait_on_buffer(bh) on architectures with weak memory ordering and it may return invalid data. Also, there is this pattern present several times: wait_on_buffer(bh); if (!buffer_uptodate(bh)) err = -EIO; It may be possible that buffer_uptodate is executed before wait_on_buffer and it may return spurious error. Fix these bugs by chaning the function buffer_locked to have the acquire semantics - so that code that follows buffer_locked cannot be moved before it. We must also add a read barrier after wait_on_bit_io because wait_on_bit_io doesn't provide any barrier. (perhaps, should this smp_rmb() be moved into wait_on_bit_io?) Signed-off-by: Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Index: linux-2.6/include/linux/buffer_head.h =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.orig/include/linux/buffer_head.h +++ linux-2.6/include/linux/buffer_head.h @@ -120,7 +120,6 @@ static __always_inline int test_clear_bu BUFFER_FNS(Uptodate, uptodate) BUFFER_FNS(Dirty, dirty) TAS_BUFFER_FNS(Dirty, dirty) -BUFFER_FNS(Lock, locked) BUFFER_FNS(Req, req) TAS_BUFFER_FNS(Req, req) BUFFER_FNS(Mapped, mapped) @@ -135,6 +134,17 @@ BUFFER_FNS(Meta, meta) BUFFER_FNS(Prio, prio) BUFFER_FNS(Defer_Completion, defer_completion) +static __always_inline void set_buffer_locked(struct buffer_head *bh) +{ + set_bit(BH_Lock, &bh->b_state); +} + +static __always_inline int buffer_locked(const struct buffer_head *bh) +{ + unsigned long state = smp_load_acquire(&bh->b_state); + return test_bit(BH_Lock, &state); +} + #define bh_offset(bh) ((unsigned long)(bh)->b_data & ~PAGE_MASK) /* If we *know* page->private refers to buffer_heads */ Index: linux-2.6/fs/buffer.c =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.orig/fs/buffer.c +++ linux-2.6/fs/buffer.c @@ -120,6 +120,7 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(buffer_check_dirty_writeba void __wait_on_buffer(struct buffer_head * bh) { wait_on_bit_io(&bh->b_state, BH_Lock, TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE); + smp_rmb(); } EXPORT_SYMBOL(__wait_on_buffer);