[PATCH 4/4] locks: use cmpxchg to assign i_flctx pointer

[Jeff Layton]

During the v3.20/v4.0 cycle, I had originally had the code manage the
inode->i_flctx pointer using a compare-and-swap operation instead of
the i_lock.

Sasha Levin though hit a problem while testing trinity that made me
believe that that wasn't safe. I now think though that I completely
misread the problem, even though it seemed like it went away when
we started using the i_lock to protect this pointer.

The issue was likely the same race that Kirill Shutemov hit while
testing the pre-rc1 v4.0 kernel and that Linus spotted. Due to the
way that the spinlock was dropped in the middle of flock_lock_file,
you could end up with multiple flock locks for the same struct file
on the inode.

Reinstate the use of a CAS operation to assign this pointer since it's
likely to be more efficient and gets the i_lock completely out of the
file locking business.

Signed-off-by: Jeff Layton <jeff.layton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
 fs/locks.c | 9 +--------
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/fs/locks.c b/fs/locks.c
index 4347f3dc17cc..22c0785c00ed 100644
--- a/fs/locks.c
+++ b/fs/locks.c
@@ -223,14 +223,7 @@ locks_get_lock_context(struct inode *inode, int type)
 	 * Assign the pointer if it's not already assigned. If it is, then
 	 * free the context we just allocated.
 	 */
-	spin_lock(&inode->i_lock);
-	if (likely(!inode->i_flctx)) {
-		inode->i_flctx = new;
-		new = NULL;
-	}
-	spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock);
-
-	if (new)
+	if (cmpxchg(&inode->i_flctx, NULL, new))
 		kmem_cache_free(flctx_cache, new);
 out:
 	return inode->i_flctx;
-- 
2.1.0

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