[ Added Ian to cc - the BUG_ON() in d_set_d_op() triggers on autofs4, see lkml thread for more details if you care ] On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 9:57 AM, Alex Elder <aelder@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > Looking at it quickly, I don't think that would matter for > the case at hand. I.e., that might be safer but it doesn't > address the fact that these fields are getting initialized > multiple times. You're right - without looking closer or thinking about it any more, I was thinking mkdir etc would create the new dentry, but it can easily be a pre-existing negative one. So it's not like mkdir is always going to be something new that can just be initialized. So yeah, no race or anything like that required - just regular acceses. That said, if we make sure that the d_op gets cleared (or the dentry dropped) when something turns negative, and a negative lookup never sets d_op, it should all basically work. Can you figure out the exact sequence that causes this? Is it enough to just mount something once? Linus -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html