configfs, dlm_controld & lockdep

[Steven Whitehouse]

Hi,

I've been trying to track down the cause of the following messages which
appear in my logs each time I start up dlm_controld:

Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel:
=============================================
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel: [ INFO: possible recursive locking
detected ]
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel: 2.6.28-rc5 #179
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel:
---------------------------------------------
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel: dlm_controld/2455 is trying to
acquire lock:
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel:
(&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#11/2){--..}, at: [<
ffffffffa0294d76>] configfs_attach_group+0x4a/0x183 [configfs]
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel:
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel: but task is already holding lock:
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel:
(&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#11/2){--..}, at: [<
ffffffffa0294d76>] configfs_attach_group+0x4a/0x183 [configfs]
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel:
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel: other info that might help us debug
this:
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel: 2 locks held by dlm_controld/2455:
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel: #0:
(&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#10/1){--..}, a
t: [<ffffffff802b5e11>] lookup_create+0x26/0x94
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel: #1:
(&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#11/2){--..}, a
t: [<ffffffffa0294d76>] configfs_attach_group+0x4a/0x183 [configfs]
Dec  1 12:53:17 men-an-tol kernel:

which seems to be caused by the mkdir which dlm_controld does in
configfs. Looking at the stack trace, this didn't make much sense until
I stuck noinline in front of several functions in configfs, whereupon I
get:
 [<ffffffff8025808e>] __lock_acquire+0xdce/0x14f5
 [<ffffffff80254894>] ? get_lock_stats+0x34/0x5c
 [<ffffffff802548ca>] ? put_lock_stats+0xe/0x27
 [<ffffffff802549c3>] ? lock_release_holdtime+0xe0/0xe5
 [<ffffffff8025880a>] lock_acquire+0x55/0x71
 [<ffffffffa024add0>] ? configfs_attach_group+0x40/0x89 [configfs]
 [<ffffffff8050563c>] mutex_lock_nested+0xf9/0x2c5
 [<ffffffffa024add0>] ? configfs_attach_group+0x40/0x89 [configfs]
 [<ffffffffa024add0>] ? configfs_attach_group+0x40/0x89 [configfs]
 [<ffffffffa024ac7c>] ? configfs_attach_item+0xed/0x201 [configfs]
 [<ffffffffa024add0>] configfs_attach_group+0x40/0x89 [configfs] <- second call
 [<ffffffffa024aec5>] create_default_group+0xac/0xe3 [configfs]
 [<ffffffffa024af24>] populate_groups+0x28/0x52 [configfs]
 [<ffffffffa024add8>] configfs_attach_group+0x48/0x89 [configfs] <- first call
 [<ffffffffa024b222>] configfs_mkdir+0x2d4/0x3bf [configfs]
 [<ffffffff802b66ef>] vfs_mkdir+0xb0/0x121
 [<ffffffff802b8afa>] sys_mkdirat+0xa2/0xf5
 [<ffffffff8020b4fc>] ? sysret_check+0x27/0x62
 [<ffffffff802569ec>] ? trace_hardirqs_on_caller+0xf0/0x114
 [<ffffffff8026cf14>] ? audit_syscall_entry+0x126/0x15a
 [<ffffffff802b8b60>] sys_mkdir+0x13/0x15
 [<ffffffff8020b4cb>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b

so it looks like configfs_attach_group is being called recursively in
this case, and I think thats the cause of the warning messages. Also I
spotted a couple of other things... from configfs_attach_item() the
inode mutex which is being locked just uses a plain old mutex_lock()
call whereas in configfs_attach_group() which calls
configfs_attach_item() there is an annotated I_MUTEX_CHILD call. I would
have expected them both to be the same since I presume that the parent
is common (locked by the VFS if I've understood whats going on here).

The second thing is that configfs_attach_item() calls populate_attrs()
which calls through to configfs_add_file(), so in order words it seems
to also be called from the context of the mkdir call. In that case the
inode mutex is locked with I_MUTEX_NORMAL annotation.

So I'm a bit confused as to why lockdep doesn't flag up those issues too
since they appear to occur before the one which produced the above
message, or maybe I've misunderstood how the annotation works.

Any ideas what is going wrong here? I think it must just be an
annotation issue since it appears that configfs works perfectly ok
otherwise, but it would be nice to get to the bottom of it,

Steve.




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