Re: [PATCH] fs: Work around NFS wreckage

From: Uwe Kleine-König
Date: Thu Jan 13 2011 - 09:13:03 EST


Hello,

On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 02:54:30PM +0100, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> The dcache scalability work broke NFS root filesystems.
>
> "cd /" results in the following problem:
>
> link_path_walk("/",...);
> jumps to return_reval
> need_reval_dot() returns true for NFS
> d_revalidate()
> dentry->d_op->d_revalidate(dentry, nd);
> returns -ECHILD due to nd->flags & LOOKUP_RCU
> nameidata_dentry_drop_rcu()
> spin_lock(&parent->d_lock);
> spin_lock_nested(&dentry->d_lock, DENTRY_D_LOCK_NESTED);
>
> This deadlocks because dentry == parent
>
> This problem exists for any filesystem which implements d_revalidate.
>
> Uwe bisected is down to commit 34286d6(fs: rcu-walk aware d_revalidate
> method), but reverting that patch causes different wreckage to show up.
>
> Check for parent equal dentry and skip the nested lock to avoid the
> deadlock. I'm sure this is the wrong fix, but at least it "works" :)
>
> Reported-by: Uwe Kleine-Koenig <u.kleine-koenig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reported-by: "Ramirez Luna, Omar" <omar.ramirez@xxxxxx>
> Not-Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> fs/namei.c | 4 ++++
> 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
>
> Index: linux-2.6/fs/namei.c
> ===================================================================
> --- linux-2.6.orig/fs/namei.c
> +++ linux-2.6/fs/namei.c
> @@ -487,6 +487,8 @@ static int nameidata_dentry_drop_rcu(str
> goto err_root;
> }
> spin_lock(&parent->d_lock);
> + if (parent == dentry)
> + goto same;
> spin_lock_nested(&dentry->d_lock, DENTRY_D_LOCK_NESTED);
> if (!__d_rcu_to_refcount(dentry, nd->seq))
> goto err;
> @@ -499,6 +501,8 @@ static int nameidata_dentry_drop_rcu(str
> BUG_ON(!parent->d_count);
> parent->d_count++;
> spin_unlock(&dentry->d_lock);
> +
> +same:
> spin_unlock(&parent->d_lock);
> if (nd->root.mnt) {
> path_get(&nd->root);
>
Note there is a different patch available in the thread here:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1087013/focus=1087048

The differences are that it tests for IS_ROOT(dentry) instead of parent ==
dentry (which looks more reasonable IMVHO) and that it increases
parent->d_count even if the test triggered.
(And it doesn't skip the BUG_ONs which hopefully doesn't make a
difference.)

Note I really have no glue about the code below fs/, but I wonder if
the toplevel directories of mounts need some treatment here, too. (But
I expect that they don't. So I ask just in case ...)

Best regards
Uwe

--
Pengutronix e.K. | Uwe Kleine-König |
Industrial Linux Solutions | http://www.pengutronix.de/ |
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