On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 07:25:11PM +0100, Miklos Szeredi wrote: > On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 6:57 PM, J. Bruce Fields <bfields@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 06:34:56PM +0100, Miklos Szeredi wrote: > >> On Wed, 2014-01-15 at 10:17 -0500, J. Bruce Fields wrote: > >> > From: "J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@xxxxxxxxxx> > >> > > >> > d_splice_alias can create duplicate directory aliases (in the !new > >> > case), or (in the new case) d_move without holding appropriate locks. > >> > >> It can d_move, because the dentry is known to be disconnected, i.e. it > >> doesn't have a parent for which we could obtain the lock. > > > > DCACHE_DISCONNECTED doesn't mean that. > > You're right, but I'm also right, because __d_find_alias() will check > IS_ROOT() too. So only "root" disconnected dentries will be moved. You're right, I forgot that check. > >> One subtle difference is that for a non-directory d_splice_alias() will > >> reconnect a DCACHE_DISCONNECTED dentry if one exists, while > >> d_materialise_unique() will not. ... > >> Does this matter in practice? The small number of extra dentries > >> probably does not matter. > > > > Directories are assumed to have unique aliases. When they don't, the > > kernel can deadlock or crash. > > What I meant is that d_materialise_unique() will currently not reuse > disconnected *nondirectory* dentries, hence there may be more aliases > than necessary. This could easily be fixed, though. And, sorry, I did miss that you said "non-directory". But I think you have that backwards: d_splice_alias looks like: if (inode && S_ISDIR(inode->i_mode)) { ... } else { d_instantiate(dentry, inode); if (d_unhashed(dentry)) d_rehash(dentry); } So it ignores any existing aliases in the non-directory case. d_materialise_unique by contrast calls __d_instantiate_unique, which looks like it should avoid adding duplicates. So I think switching everyone to d_materialiase_unique would result in fewer dentries. But I've never seen any complaint about the issue and like you don't see a reason this would matter much either way. --b. -- 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