This is what I'm currently playing with which I believe fixes the iput() problem. In fs/ext4/inode.c: struct other_inode { unsigned long orig_ino; struct ext4_inode *raw_inode; }; static int other_inode_match(struct inode * inode, unsigned long ino, void *data); /* * Opportunistically update the other time fields for other inodes in * the same inode table block. */ static void ext4_update_other_inodes_time(struct super_block *sb, unsigned long orig_ino, char *buf) { struct other_inode oi; unsigned long ino; int i, inodes_per_block = EXT4_SB(sb)->s_inodes_per_block; int inode_size = EXT4_INODE_SIZE(sb); oi.orig_ino = orig_ino; ino = orig_ino & ~(inodes_per_block - 1); for (i = 0; i < inodes_per_block; i++, ino++, buf += inode_size) { if (ino == orig_ino) continue; oi.raw_inode = (struct ext4_inode *) buf; (void) find_inode_nowait(sb, ino, other_inode_match, &oi); } } static int other_inode_match(struct inode * inode, unsigned long ino, void *data) { struct other_inode *oi = (struct other_inode *) data; if ((inode->i_ino != ino) || (inode->i_state & (I_FREEING | I_WILL_FREE | I_NEW)) || ((inode->i_state & I_DIRTY_TIME) == 0)) return 0; spin_lock(&inode->i_lock); if (((inode->i_state & (I_FREEING | I_WILL_FREE | I_NEW)) == 0) && (inode->i_state & I_DIRTY_TIME)) { struct ext4_inode_info *ei = EXT4_I(inode); inode->i_state &= ~I_DIRTY_TIME; inode->i_ts_dirty_day = 0; spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock); inode_requeue_dirtytime(inode); spin_lock(&ei->i_raw_lock); EXT4_INODE_SET_XTIME(i_ctime, inode, oi->raw_inode); EXT4_INODE_SET_XTIME(i_mtime, inode, oi->raw_inode); EXT4_INODE_SET_XTIME(i_atime, inode, oi->raw_inode); ext4_inode_csum_set(inode, oi->raw_inode, ei); spin_unlock(&ei->i_raw_lock); trace_ext4_other_inode_update_time(inode, oi->orig_ino); return -1; } spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock); return -1; } The above uses the following in fs/inode.c (which gets added instead of find_active_inode_nowait): /** * find_inode_nowait - find an inode in the inode cache * @sb: super block of file system to search * @hashval: hash value (usually inode number) to search for * @match: callback used for comparisons between inodes * @data: opaque data pointer to pass to @match * * Search for the inode specified by @hashval and @data in the inode * cache, where the helper function @match will return 0 if the inode * does not match, 1 if the inode does match, and -1 if the search * should be stopped. The @match function must be responsible for * taking the i_lock spin_lock and checking i_state for an inode being * freed or being initialized, and incrementing the reference count * before returning 1. It also must not sleep, since it is called with * the inode_hash_lock spinlock held. * * This is a even more generalized version of ilookup5() when the * function must never block --- find_inode() can block in * __wait_on_freeing_inode() --- or when the caller can not increment * the reference count because the resulting iput() might cause an * inode eviction(). The tradeoff is that the @match funtion must be * very carefully implemented. */ struct inode *find_inode_nowait(struct super_block *sb, unsigned long hashval, int (*match)(struct inode *, unsigned long, void *), void *data) { struct hlist_head *head = inode_hashtable + hash(sb, hashval); struct inode *inode, *ret_inode = NULL; int mval; spin_lock(&inode_hash_lock); hlist_for_each_entry(inode, head, i_hash) { if (inode->i_sb != sb) continue; mval = match(inode, hashval, data); if (mval == 0) continue; if (mval == 1) ret_inode = inode; goto out; } out: spin_unlock(&inode_hash_lock); return ret_inode; } EXPORT_SYMBOL(find_inode_nowait); Comments? - Ted -- 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