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

From: Al Viro
Date: Mon Jul 02 2012 - 08:03:02 EST


On Mon, Jul 02, 2012 at 07:49:50AM -0400, Mimi Zohar wrote:

> > > > 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):
>
> Sorry, neither adding the delay or this patch helped.

Really odd. Could you print the error returned by kernel_execve() in run_init_process()?
At least that way we'll get some indication of what's going on there. Another thing:
could you slap matching printks into the nested if() in fput() and the loop in
delayed_fput(), just to see if we do get __fput() done on all the right struct file?
Just "fput: %p", file and "delayed_fput: %p", file would probably be enough.

I'm assuming that I hadn't misparsed what you wrote and that __fput() in nested
if() in fput() was enough to get the thing working. Could you confirm that?

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/