Re: dcache_readdir NULL inode oops

[Jan Glauber]

Hi Al,

On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 04:32:28PM +0000, Will Deacon wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 04:08:52PM +0000, Al Viro wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 09:16:49AM -0600, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> > > >> > +       inode_lock(parent->d_inode);
> > > >> >         dentry->d_fsdata = NULL;
> > > >> >         drop_nlink(dentry->d_inode);
> > > >> >         d_delete(dentry);
> > > >> > +       inode_unlock(parent->d_inode);
> > > >> > +
> > > >> >         dput(dentry);   /* d_alloc_name() in devpts_pty_new() */
> > > >> >  }
> > > >
> > > > This feels right but getting some feedback from others would be good.
> > >
> > > This is going to be special at least because we are not coming through
> > > the normal unlink path and we are manipulating the dcache.
> > >
> > > This looks plausible.  If this is whats going on then we have had this
> > > bug for a very long time.  I will see if I can make some time.
> > >
> > > It looks like in the general case everything is serialized by the
> > > devpts_mutex.  I wonder if just changing the order of operations
> > > here would be enough.
> > >
> > > AKA: drop_nlink d_delete then dentry->d_fsdata.  Ugh d_fsdata is not
> > > implicated so that won't help here.
> >
> > It certainly won't.  The thing is, this
> >                 if (!dir_emit(ctx, next->d_name.name, next->d_name.len,
> >                               d_inode(next)->i_ino, dt_type(d_inode(next))))
> > in dcache_readdir() obviously can block, so all we can hold over it is
> > blocking locks.  Which we do - specifically, ->i_rwsem on our directory.
> >
> > It's actually worse than missing inode_lock() - consider the effects
> > of mount --bind /mnt/foo /dev/pts/42.  What happens when that thing
> > goes away?  Right, a lost mount...
> 
> Ha, I hadn't even considered that scenario. Urgh!
> 
> > I'll resurrect the "kernel-internal rm -rf done right" series and
> > post it; devpts is not the only place suffering such problem (binfmt_misc,
> > etc.)

I've not seen anything merged regarding this issue so I guess this is
still open? We see a similar crash (dcache_readdir hitting a NULL inode
ptr) but this time not with devpts.

Debugging is ongoing and we're not even sure which filesystem is having
the issue. Is my assumption correct that we should only see this when
d_delete(dentry) is called?

thanks,
Jan