Re: [PATCH] autofs4 - remove hashed check in validate_wait()

[Ian Kent]

Ian Kent wrote:
> Andrew Morton wrote:
>> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:23:40 +0800 Ian Kent <raven@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Andrew Morton wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:25:37 +0800 Ian Kent <raven@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The recent ->lookup() deadlock correction required the directory
>>>>> inode mutex to be dropped while waiting for expire completion. We
>>>>> were concerned about side effects from this change and one has
>>>>> been identified.
>>>>>
>>>>> When checking if a mount has already completed prior to adding a
>>>>> new mount request to the wait queue we check if the dentry is hashed
>>>>> and, if so, if it is a mount point. But, if a mount successfully
>>>>> completed while we slept on the wait queue mutex the dentry must
>>>>> exist for the mount to have completed so the test is not really
>>>>> needed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Mounts can also be done on top of a global root dentry, so for the
>>>>> above case, where a mount request completes and the wait queue entry
>>>>> has already been removed, the hashed test returning false can cause
>>>>> an incorrect callback to the daemon. Also, d_mountpoint() is not
>>>>> sufficient to check if a mount has completed for the multi-mount
>>>>> case when we don't have a real mount at the base of the tree.
>>>>>
>>>> I've been scratching my head trying to work out if this is a
>>>> needed-in-2.6.30 fix, but all I got was a bald spot.  Help?
>>> Yeah, and why would you want to know that much about autofs, it's a
>>> wonder I have any hair at all, ;)
>>>
>>> I think so if possible, as it resolves an issue that is a side effect of
>>> the last patch I sent, which resolved a deadlook in ->lookup(). The
>>> problem occurs due to dropping the directory inode mutex before waiting
>>> for an expire. What isn't obvious is that holding the mutex (as we did
>>> previously) causes processes wanting to request mounts for other
>>> directories to wait, so we don't see the contention for the mount
>>> request wait queue that this patch addresses.
>>>
>>> However, the issue only surfaces when there are a number of processes
>>> all trying to perform mounts at the same time. The test I ran used 10
>>> processes all using the same map.
>> <scratch scratch> 
>> What are the user-visible effects of the thing-which-this-fixed?
> 
> I saw several error messages.
> 
> They cause autofs to become quite confused and don't really point to the
> actual problem.
> 
> Things like:
> 
> handle_packet_missing_direct:1376: can't find map entry for (43,1827932)
> 
> which is usually totally fatal (although in this case it wouldn't be
> except that I treat is as such because it normally is).

Oh .. and the requesting user always receives a fail in this case in
spite of the mount actually having previously succeeded.

> 
> do_mount_direct: direct trigger not valid or already mounted
> /test/nested/g3c/s1/ss1
> 
> which is recoverable, however if this problem is at play it can cause
> autofs to become quite confused as to the dependencies in the mount tree
> because mount triggers end up mounted multiple times. It's hard to
> accurately check for this over mounting case and automount shouldn't
> need to if the kernel module is doing its job.
> 
> There was one other message, similar in consequence of this last one but
> I can't locate a log example just now.

And these two cause fails to be returned return to the requesting
process either immediately or shortly after as autofs becomes confused.

Sorry I can't give a clearer description.

Ian

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