Re: [PATCH] dax: fix deadlock in __dax_fault

[Dave Chinner]

On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 04:40:01PM -0600, Ross Zwisler wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 10:59:04AM +1000, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 09:17:45PM -0600, Ross Zwisler wrote:
> <>
> > In reality, the require DAX page fault vs truncate serialisation is
> > provided for XFS by the XFS_MMAPLOCK_* inode locking that is done in
> > the fault, mkwrite and filesystem extent manipulation paths. There
> > is no way this sort of exclusion can be done in the mm/ subsystem as
> > it simply does not have the context to be able to provide the
> > necessary serialisation.  Every filesystem that wants to use DAX
> > needs to provide this external page fault serialisation, and in
> > doing so will also protect it's hole punch/extent swap/shift
> > operations under normal operation against racing mmap access....
> > 
> > IOWs, for DAX this needs to be fixed in ext4, not the mm/ subsystem.
> 
> So is it your belief that XFS already has correct locking in place to ensure
> that we don't hit these races?  I see XFS taking XFS_MMAPLOCK_SHARED before it
> calls __dax_fault() in both xfs_filemap_page_mkwrite() (via __dax_mkwrite) and
> in xfs_filemap_fault().
> 
> XFS takes XFS_MMAPLOCK_EXCL before a truncate in xfs_vn_setattr() - I haven't
> found the generic hole punching code yet, but I assume it takes
> XFS_MMAPLOCK_EXCL as well.

There is no generic hole punching. See xfs_file_fallocate(), where
most fallocate() based operations are protected, xfs_ioc_space()
where all the XFS ioctl based extent manipulations are protected,
xfs_swap_extents() where online defrag extent swaps are protected.
And we'll add it to any future operations that directly
manipulate extent mappings. 

> Meaning, is the work that we need to do around extent vs page fault locking
> basically adding equivalent locking to ext4 and ext2 and removing the attempts
> at locking from dax.c?

Yup. I'm not game to touch ext4 locking, though.

> 
> > > 4) Test all changes with xfstests using both xfs & ext4, using lockep.
> > > 
> > > Did I miss any issues, or does this path not solve one of them somehow?
> > > 
> > > Does this sound like a reasonable path forward for v4.3?  Dave, and Jan, can
> > > you guys can provide guidance and code reviews for the XFS and ext4 bits?
> > 
> > IMO, it's way too much to get into 4.3. I'd much prefer we revert
> > the bad changes in 4.3, and then work towards fixing this for the
> > 4.4 merge window. If someone needs this for 4.3, then they can
> > backport the 4.4 code to 4.3-stable.
> > 
> > The "fast and loose and fix it later" development model does not
> > work for persistent storage algorithms; DAX is storage - not memory
> > management - and so we need to treat it as such.
> 
> Okay.  To get our locking back to v4.2 levels here are the two commits I think
> we need to look at:
> 
> commit 843172978bb9 ("dax: fix race between simultaneous faults")
> commit 46c043ede471 ("mm: take i_mmap_lock in unmap_mapping_range() for DAX")

Already testing a kernel with those reverted. My current DAX patch
stack is (bottom is first commit in stack):

f672ae4 xfs: add ->pfn_mkwrite support for DAX
6855c23 xfs: remove DAX complete_unwritten callback
e074bdf Revert "dax: fix race between simultaneous faults"
8ba0157 Revert "mm: take i_mmap_lock in unmap_mapping_range() for DAX"
a2ce6a5 xfs: DAX does not use IO completion callbacks
246c52a xfs: update size during allocation for DAX
9d10e7b xfs: Don't use unwritten extents for DAX
eaef807 xfs: factor out sector mapping.
e7f2d50 xfs: introduce per-inode DAX enablement

BTW, add to the problems that need fixing is that the pfn_mkwrite
code needs to check that the fault is still within EOF, like
__dax_fault does. i.e. the top patch in the series adds this
to xfs_filemap_pfn_mkwrite() instead of using dax_pfn_mkwrite():

....
+       /* check if the faulting page hasn't raced with truncate */
+       xfs_ilock(ip, XFS_MMAPLOCK_SHARED);
+       size = (i_size_read(inode) + PAGE_SIZE - 1) >> PAGE_SHIFT;
+       if (vmf->pgoff >= size)
+               ret = VM_FAULT_SIGBUS;
+       xfs_iunlock(ip, XFS_MMAPLOCK_SHARED);
+       sb_end_pagefault(inode->i_sb);

i.e. dax_pfn_mkwrite() doesn't work correctly when racing with
truncate (i.e. another way that ext2/ext4 are currently broken).

> On an unrelated note, while wandering through the XFS code I found the
> following lock ordering documented above xfs_ilock():
> 
>  * Basic locking order:
>  *
>  * i_iolock -> i_mmap_lock -> page_lock -> i_ilock
>  *
>  * mmap_sem locking order:
>  *
>  * i_iolock -> page lock -> mmap_sem
>  * mmap_sem -> i_mmap_lock -> page_lock
> 
> I noticed that page_lock and i_mmap_lock are in different places in the
> ordering depending on the presence or absence of mmap_sem.  Does this not open
> us up to a lock ordering inversion?

Typo, not picked up in review (note the missing "_").

- * i_iolock -> page lock -> mmap_sem
+ * i_iolock -> page fault -> mmap_sem

Thanks for the heads-up on that.

Cheers,

Dave.
-- 
Dave Chinner
david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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