On Mon 19-03-12 04:55:15, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > On Fri, Mar 09, 2012 at 10:02:28AM +0100, Jan Kara wrote: > > Doing iput() from flusher thread (writeback_sb_inodes()) can create problems > > because iput() can do a lot of work - for example truncate the inode if it's > > the last iput on unlinked file. Some filesystems (e.g. ubifs) may need to > > allocate blocks during truncate (due to their COW nature) and in some cases > > they thus need to flush dirty data from truncate to reduce uncertainty in the > > amount of free space. This effectively creates a deadlock. > > > > We get rid of iput() in flusher thread by using the fact that I_SYNC inode > > flag effectively pins the inode in memory. So if we take care to either hold > > i_lock or have I_SYNC set, we can get away without taking inode reference > > in writeback_sb_inodes(). > > > > As a side effect, we also fix possible use-after-free in wb_writeback() because > > inode_wait_for_writeback() call could try to reacquire i_lock on the inode that > > was already free. > > > > Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx> > > --- > > fs/fs-writeback.c | 38 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------- > > fs/inode.c | 11 ++++++++++- > > include/linux/fs.h | 7 ++++--- > > include/linux/writeback.h | 7 +------ > > 4 files changed, 39 insertions(+), 24 deletions(-) > > > > diff --git a/fs/fs-writeback.c b/fs/fs-writeback.c > > index 1e8bf44..f9f9b61 100644 > > --- a/fs/fs-writeback.c > > +++ b/fs/fs-writeback.c > > @@ -325,19 +325,21 @@ static int write_inode(struct inode *inode, struct writeback_control *wbc) > > } > > > > /* > > - * Wait for writeback on an inode to complete. > > + * Wait for writeback on an inode to complete. Called with i_lock held. > > + * Return 1 if we dropped i_lock and waited, 0 is returned otherwise. > > */ > > -static void inode_wait_for_writeback(struct inode *inode) > > +int __must_check inode_wait_for_writeback(struct inode *inode) > > { > > DEFINE_WAIT_BIT(wq, &inode->i_state, __I_SYNC); > > wait_queue_head_t *wqh; > > > > wqh = bit_waitqueue(&inode->i_state, __I_SYNC); > > + if (inode->i_state & I_SYNC) { > > spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock); > > __wait_on_bit(wqh, &wq, inode_wait, TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE); > > + return 1; > > } > > + return 0; > > This is a horribly ugl primitive. > > I'd rather add a > > void inode_wait_for_writeback(struct inode *inode) > { > DEFINE_WAIT_BIT(wq, &inode->i_state, __I_SYNC); > wait_queue_head_t *wqh = bit_waitqueue(&inode->i_state, __I_SYNC); > > __wait_on_bit(wqh, &wq, inode_wait, TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE); > } > > and opencode all the locking ad I_SYNC checking logic in the callers. I agree the primitive is ugly. And actually it is buggy the way I wrote it. It should have been: __wait_on_bit(wqh, &wq, isync_wait, TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE); where isync_wait is: int isync_wait(void *word) { struct inode *inode = container_of(word, struct inode, i_state); spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock); schedule(); return 1; } The problem is i_lock pins the inode for us in some cases. So once we drop i_lock, inode can go away so we cannot test the bit anymore. But there are just two places where we really need this. So maybe I can just opencode it there and for others use normal obvious variant. 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