Since the RCU dcache lookup came in, on five occasions a "cp -a" in my dual kbuild swapping tests has failed because a source file vanished momentarily e.g. cp: cannot open `/usr/src/linux/include/linux/cramfs_fs.h' for reading: No such file or directory That -ENOENT in walk_component: isn't it assuming we found a negative dentry, before reaching the read_seqcount_retry which complete_walk (or nameidata_drop_rcu_last before 3.0) would use to confirm a successful lookup? And can't memory pressure prune a dentry, coming to dentry_kill which __d_drops to unhash before dentry_iput resets d_inode to NULL, but the dentry_rcuwalk_barrier between those is ineffective if the other end ignores the seqcount? Move !inode -ENOENT checks from walk_component down into do_lookup, adding read_seqcount_retry confirmation in the RCU case. And use path_put_conditional instead of path_to_nameidata (a reverse way of doing the same) in the non-RCU case, to match the error case just above. Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hughd@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxx --- I think I now have a faster script (four slightly staggered "cp -a"s of kernel source, run in limited memory) to reproduce this in hours rather than weeks; but I'm still calibrating that, cannot yet say whether this patch fixes it. Sending patch on ahead in case it's obvious to you. fs/namei.c | 16 +++++++++------- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) --- 3.0-git/fs/namei.c 2011-07-15 19:40:03.269867213 -0700 +++ linux/fs/namei.c 2011-07-17 10:08:17.586475293 -0700 @@ -1173,7 +1173,10 @@ static int do_lookup(struct nameidata *n goto unlazy; if (unlikely(path->dentry->d_flags & DCACHE_NEED_AUTOMOUNT)) goto unlazy; - return 0; + if (*inode) + return 0; + if (!read_seqcount_retry(&dentry->d_seq, nd->seq)) + return -ENOENT; unlazy: if (unlazy_walk(nd, dentry)) return -ECHILD; @@ -1223,6 +1226,10 @@ retry: return err; } *inode = path->dentry->d_inode; + if (!*inode) { + path_put_conditional(path, nd); + return -ENOENT; + } return 0; } @@ -1276,15 +1283,10 @@ static inline int walk_component(struct if (unlikely(type != LAST_NORM)) return handle_dots(nd, type); err = do_lookup(nd, name, path, &inode); - if (unlikely(err)) { + if (err) { terminate_walk(nd); return err; } - if (!inode) { - path_to_nameidata(path, nd); - terminate_walk(nd); - return -ENOENT; - } if (unlikely(inode->i_op->follow_link) && follow) { if (nd->flags & LOOKUP_RCU) { if (unlikely(unlazy_walk(nd, path->dentry))) { -- 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