Re: [PATCH 0/4] Was: deferring __fput()

From: Al Viro
Date: Mon Jul 02 2012 - 01:12:06 EST


On Mon, Jul 02, 2012 at 04:43:10AM +0100, Al Viro wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 01, 2012 at 09:46:31PM -0400, Mimi Zohar wrote:
> > On Sun, 2012-07-01 at 21:57 +0100, Al Viro wrote:
> > > On Sun, Jul 01, 2012 at 03:50:02PM -0400, Mimi Zohar wrote:
> > > > Replacing it with a call to __fput(), the system boots.
> > >
> > > "it" being just the part under that if (unlikely(...)))? Very interesting... If so, we
> > > have some kernel thread ending up with delayed __fput() which somehow makes dracut (assuimg
> > > you are using fedora initramfs to go with fedora config) unhappy. With your own patch,
> > > doing async __fput() in a lot of cases when this one doesn't delay past the return to
> > > userland managing to survive the boot... I wonder which files end up triggering that fun
> > > and which kernel thread is responsible... Could you slap a printk() in there, showing
> > > file->f_dentry->d_inode->i_mode (octal) and at least file->f_dentry->d_name.name?
> > > Along with the current->comm[], all under that inner if (). And see which ones end up
> > > going that way by the time execve() of /sbin/init fails.
> >
> > pid=1 uid=0 d_name=init comm=swapper/0 dev="rootfs" mode=100775
> > pid=1 uid=0 d_name=bash comm=swapper/0 dev="rootfs" mode=100755
>
> OK... Here's what I suspect is going on:
> * populating initramfs writes binaries there. We open files (for write) from
> the kernel thread (there's nothing other than kernel threads at that point), write to
> them, then close(). Final fput() gets delayed.
> * Then we proceed to execve(). Which means mapping the binary with MAP_DENYWRITE.
> Which fails, since there's a struct file still opened for write on that sucker.
>
> Your patch did not delay those fput() - they were done without ->mmap_sem held. So
> it survived. Booting without initramfs always survives; booting with initramfs may
> or may not survive, depending on the timings - if that scheduled work manages to
> run by the time we do those execve(), we win. Note that async_synchronize_full()
> done in init_post() might easily affect that, depending on config.
>
> As a quick test, could you try slapping a delay somewhere around the beginning
> of init_post() and see if it rescues the system?

Ho-hum... How about this (modulo missing documentation of the whole sad mess):

diff --git a/fs/file_table.c b/fs/file_table.c
index 470da0b..00fd849 100644
--- a/fs/file_table.c
+++ b/fs/file_table.c
@@ -284,6 +284,11 @@ static void ____fput(struct callback_head *work)
__fput(container_of(work, struct file, f_u.fu_rcuhead));
}

+void flush_delayed_fput(void)
+{
+ delayed_fput(NULL);
+}
+
static DECLARE_WORK(delayed_fput_work, delayed_fput);

void fput(struct file *file)
diff --git a/include/linux/file.h b/include/linux/file.h
index 58bf158..d9a4f5a 100644
--- a/include/linux/file.h
+++ b/include/linux/file.h
@@ -39,4 +39,6 @@ extern void put_unused_fd(unsigned int fd);

extern void fd_install(unsigned int fd, struct file *file);

+extern void flush_delayed_fput(void);
+
#endif /* __LINUX_FILE_H */
diff --git a/init/main.c b/init/main.c
index b5cc0a7..3f151f6 100644
--- a/init/main.c
+++ b/init/main.c
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@
#include <linux/shmem_fs.h>
#include <linux/slab.h>
#include <linux/perf_event.h>
+#include <linux/file.h>

#include <asm/io.h>
#include <asm/bugs.h>
@@ -804,8 +805,8 @@ static noinline int init_post(void)
system_state = SYSTEM_RUNNING;
numa_default_policy();

-
current->signal->flags |= SIGNAL_UNKILLABLE;
+ flush_delayed_fput();

if (ramdisk_execute_command) {
run_init_process(ramdisk_execute_command);
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