Hello, On Thu 05-05-11 17:57:16, Tao Ma wrote: > From: Tao Ma <boyu.mt@xxxxxxxxxx> > > In do_get_write_access, we check journal_head->b_jlist and if it > is BJ_Shadow, we will sleep until we remove it from t_shadow_list > in jbd2_journal_commit_transaction, but it isn't protected by any > lock. So if we uses some cached b_jlist and before schedule, > jbd2_journal_commit_transaction has already waken up all > the waiting thread. As a result, this thread will never be waken up. I had a look at the code and I think it's more complicated than this. The code is: prepare_to_wait(wqh, &wait.wait, TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE); if (jh->b_jlist != BJ_Shadow) break; schedule(); You're right that jh->b_jlist != BJ_Shadow test is done without any lock. But prepare_to_wait() does set_current_state() which implies a memory barrier. The comment there says: /* * set_current_state() includes a barrier so that the write of current->state * is correctly serialised wrt the caller's subsequent test of whether to * actually sleep: * * set_current_state(TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE); * if (do_i_need_to_sleep()) * schedule(); * * If the caller does not need such serialisation then use __set_current_state() */ So we are guaranteed that either we see that jh->b_jlist != BJ_Shadow or the waking process sees us in the wait queue and removes us. Well, not quite. The waking code is: journal_file_buffer(jh, commit_transaction, BJ_Forget); /* Wake up any transactions which were waiting for this IO to complete */ wake_up_bit(&bh->b_state, BH_Unshadow); And that's where the problem actually is. Even the comment before wake_up_bit() warns that: * In order for this to function properly, as it uses waitqueue_active() * internally, some kind of memory barrier must be done prior to calling * this. Typically, this will be smp_mb__after_clear_bit(), but in some * cases where bitflags are manipulated non-atomically under a lock, one * may need to use a less regular barrier, such fs/inode.c's smp_mb(), * because spin_unlock() does not guarantee a memory barrier. I'll send proper fix in a moment. Honza -- Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx> SUSE Labs, CR -- 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