[PATCH v2] ocfs2: kill osb->system_file_mutex lock

From: Tetsuo Handa

Date: Mon May 18 2026 - 00:23:59 EST


Commit 43b10a20372d ("ocfs2: avoid system inode ref confusion by adding
mutex lock") tried to avoid a refcount leak caused by allowing multiple
threads to call igrab(inode). But addition of osb->system_file_mutex made
locking dependency complicated and is causing lockdep to warn about
possibility of AB-BA deadlock.

Since _ocfs2_get_system_file_inode() returns the same inode for the same
input arguments, we don't need to serialize _ocfs2_get_system_file_inode().
What we need to make sure is that igrab(inode) is called for only once().
Therefore, replace osb->system_file_mutex with cmpxchg()-based locking.

Fixes: 43b10a20372d ("ocfs2: avoid system inode ref confusion by adding mutex lock")
Signed-off-by: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
Changes in v2:
Updated patch description.

fs/ocfs2/ocfs2.h | 2 --
fs/ocfs2/super.c | 2 --
fs/ocfs2/sysfile.c | 9 +++------
3 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)

diff --git a/fs/ocfs2/ocfs2.h b/fs/ocfs2/ocfs2.h
index 7b50e03dfa66..62cad6522c7a 100644
--- a/fs/ocfs2/ocfs2.h
+++ b/fs/ocfs2/ocfs2.h
@@ -494,8 +494,6 @@ struct ocfs2_super
struct rb_root osb_rf_lock_tree;
struct ocfs2_refcount_tree *osb_ref_tree_lru;

- struct mutex system_file_mutex;
-
/*
* OCFS2 needs to schedule several different types of work which
* require cluster locking, disk I/O, recovery waits, etc. Since these
diff --git a/fs/ocfs2/super.c b/fs/ocfs2/super.c
index b875f01c9756..6dd45c2153f8 100644
--- a/fs/ocfs2/super.c
+++ b/fs/ocfs2/super.c
@@ -1997,8 +1997,6 @@ static int ocfs2_initialize_super(struct super_block *sb,
spin_lock_init(&osb->osb_xattr_lock);
ocfs2_init_steal_slots(osb);

- mutex_init(&osb->system_file_mutex);
-
atomic_set(&osb->alloc_stats.moves, 0);
atomic_set(&osb->alloc_stats.local_data, 0);
atomic_set(&osb->alloc_stats.bitmap_data, 0);
diff --git a/fs/ocfs2/sysfile.c b/fs/ocfs2/sysfile.c
index d53a6cc866be..67e492f4b828 100644
--- a/fs/ocfs2/sysfile.c
+++ b/fs/ocfs2/sysfile.c
@@ -98,11 +98,9 @@ struct inode *ocfs2_get_system_file_inode(struct ocfs2_super *osb,
} else
arr = get_local_system_inode(osb, type, slot);

- mutex_lock(&osb->system_file_mutex);
if (arr && ((inode = *arr) != NULL)) {
/* get a ref in addition to the array ref */
inode = igrab(inode);
- mutex_unlock(&osb->system_file_mutex);
BUG_ON(!inode);

return inode;
@@ -112,11 +110,10 @@ struct inode *ocfs2_get_system_file_inode(struct ocfs2_super *osb,
inode = _ocfs2_get_system_file_inode(osb, type, slot);

/* add one more if putting into array for first time */
- if (arr && inode) {
- *arr = igrab(inode);
- BUG_ON(!*arr);
+ if (inode && arr && !*arr && !cmpxchg(&(*arr), NULL, inode)) {
+ inode = igrab(inode);
+ BUG_ON(!inode);
}
- mutex_unlock(&osb->system_file_mutex);
return inode;
}

--
2.54.0