Re: [PATCH 01/34] VFS: Make clone_mnt() and copy_tree() return error codes

From: Miklos Szeredi
Date: Thu Oct 07 2010 - 05:43:33 EST


On Wed, 6 Oct 2010, Valerie Aurora wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 01, 2010 at 11:12:48AM +0200, Szeredi Miklos wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 3:58 AM, Ram Pai <linuxram@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > > > @@ -1212,11 +1216,12 @@ struct vfsmount *copy_tree(struct vfsmount *mnt, struct dentry *dentry,
> > > > > > > ? ? ? ? struct path path;
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > ? ? ? ? if (!(flag & CL_COPY_ALL) && IS_MNT_UNBINDABLE(mnt))
> > > > > > > - ? ? ? ? ? ? ? return NULL;
> > > > > > > + ? ? ? ? ? ? ? return ERR_PTR(-EINVAL);
> > > > >
> > > > > Ram, do you remember how this worked?
> > > >
> > > > Oops. That should be a OR condition. there is one other check in that
> > > > function that should also be a OR condition.
> > >
> > > I may be wrong here. Can't exactly recollect what CL_COPY_ALL flag means. Al Viro
> > > might remember? ?If CL_COPY_ALL means, to clone everything irrespective of any other
> > > flags, then the above code seems right.
> >
> > CL_COPY_ALL means clone the mount despite MNT_UNBINDABLE. It is used
> > for cloning the whole namespace and for collect_mounts(), both of
> > which ignore MNT_UNBINDABLE.
> >
> > Of the two remaining callers of copy_tree() do_loopback already checks
> > MNT_UNBINDABLE on the root of the tree to be copied.
>
> I reviewed and tested and agree.
>
> But I don't think this change should go into stable. It doesn't fix
> any existing bug and I don't like perturbing the code in stable for a
> code cleanup.

Right.

> > So that leaves the one in pnode.c. That one will be called when
> > attaching a new mount or mount tree. If the root of that tree is
> > unbindable then the propagation will fail with -ENOMEM which is wrong,
> > it should simply skip the whole tree and not try to propagate. Calls
>
> Not try to propagate - and return an error? Or succeed and ignore?

I thought succeed and ignore is the right answer, but I'm not sure
now.

> > which result in propagation are do_loopback, do_move_mount and
> > do_add_mount. Of this do_loopback and do_move_mount already check for
> > MNT_UNBINDABLE, do_add_mount doesn't check, but should probably just
> > mask out MNT_UNBINDABLE.
>
> Hm, if we stop trusting callers of do_add_mount(), we should probably
> do a lot more than just mask this out. Interestingly, most out-of-VFS
> callers just seem to add MNT_SHRINKABLE, maybe we should export
> do_add_shrinkable() instead or something like that?
>
> > So in the end that check in copy_tree() should never actually trigger
> > and can be turned into a WARN_ON
>
> WARN_ON() makes sense.
>
> > Additionally the propagation code should perhaps be more defensive and
> > skip MNT_UNBINDABLE source mounts.
>
> Maybe WARN_ON() here too?

Yes, I think so.

Thanks,
Miklos
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