Re: possible deadlock in pipe_lock (2)

[Amir Goldstein]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 2:37 PM Miklos Szeredi <miklos@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 1:06 PM Miklos Szeredi <miklos@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 8:38 AM Amir Goldstein <amir73il@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 8:23 PM syzbot
> > > <syzbot+31d8b84465a7cbfd8515@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > > -> #1 (&ovl_i_mutex_key[depth]){+.+.}:
> > > >         down_write+0x38/0x90 kernel/locking/rwsem.c:70
> > > >         inode_lock include/linux/fs.h:757 [inline]
> > > >         ovl_write_iter+0x148/0xc20 fs/overlayfs/file.c:231
> > > >         call_write_iter include/linux/fs.h:1863 [inline]
> > > >         new_sync_write fs/read_write.c:474 [inline]
> > > >         __vfs_write+0x613/0x8e0 fs/read_write.c:487
> > > > kobject: 'loop4' (000000009e2b886d): kobject_uevent_env
> > > >         __kernel_write+0x110/0x3b0 fs/read_write.c:506
> > > >         write_pipe_buf+0x15d/0x1f0 fs/splice.c:797
> > > >         splice_from_pipe_feed fs/splice.c:503 [inline]
> > > >         __splice_from_pipe+0x39a/0x7e0 fs/splice.c:627
> > > >         splice_from_pipe+0x108/0x170 fs/splice.c:662
> > > >         default_file_splice_write+0x3c/0x90 fs/splice.c:809
> >
> > Irrelevant to the lockdep splat, but why isn't there an
> > ovl_splice_write() that just recurses into realfile->splice_write()?
> > Sounds like a much more efficient way to handle splice read and
> > write...
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > Miklos,
> > >
> > > Its good that this report popped up again, because I went to
> > > look back at my notes from previous report [1].
> > > If I was right in my previous analysis then we must have a real
> > > deadlock in current "lazy copy up" WIP patches. Right?
> >
> > Hmm, AFAICS this circular dependency translated into layman's terms:
> >
> > pipe lock -> ovl inode lock  (splice to ovl file)
> >
> > ovl inode lock -> upper freeze lock (truncate of ovl file)
> >
> > upper freeze lock -> pipe lock (splice to upper file)
>
> So what can we do with this?
>
> The "freeze lock -> inode lock" dependency is fixed.   This is
> reversed in overlay to "ovl inode lock -> upper freeze lock", which is
> okay, because this is a nesting that cannot be reversed.   But in
> splice the pipe locks comes in between: "freeze lock -> pipe lock ->
> inode lock" which breaks this nesting direction and creates a true
> reverse dependency between ovl inode lock and upper freeze lock.
>
> The only way I see this could be fixed is to move the freeze lock
> inside the pipe lock.  But that would mean splice/sendfile/etc could
> be frozen with the pipe lock held.  It doesn't look nice.
>
> Any other ideas?
>

[CC Jan]

I think we are allowed to file_start_write_trylock(upper)
before ovl_inode_lock(). This in ONLY needed to cover the corner
case of upper being frozen in between "upper freeze lock -> pipe lock"
and thread B being in between "ovl inode lock -> upper freeze lock".
Is it OK to return a transient error in this corner copy up case?

Thanks,
Amir.