Re: [PATCH v6 5/7] kernfs: use i_lock to protect concurrent inode updates

[Al Viro]

On Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 04:51:22PM +0800, Ian Kent wrote:
> The inode operations .permission() and .getattr() use the kernfs node
> write lock but all that's needed is to keep the rb tree stable while
> updating the inode attributes as well as protecting the update itself
> against concurrent changes.

Huh?  Where does it access the rbtree at all?  Confused...

> diff --git a/fs/kernfs/inode.c b/fs/kernfs/inode.c
> index 3b01e9e61f14e..6728ecd81eb37 100644
> --- a/fs/kernfs/inode.c
> +++ b/fs/kernfs/inode.c
> @@ -172,6 +172,7 @@ static void kernfs_refresh_inode(struct kernfs_node *kn, struct inode *inode)
>  {
>  	struct kernfs_iattrs *attrs = kn->iattr;
>  
> +	spin_lock(&inode->i_lock);
>  	inode->i_mode = kn->mode;
>  	if (attrs)
>  		/*
> @@ -182,6 +183,7 @@ static void kernfs_refresh_inode(struct kernfs_node *kn, struct inode *inode)
>  
>  	if (kernfs_type(kn) == KERNFS_DIR)
>  		set_nlink(inode, kn->dir.subdirs + 2);
> +	spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock);
>  }

Even more so - just what are you serializing here?  That code synchronizes inode
metadata with those in kernfs_node.  Suppose you've got two threads doing
->permission(); the first one gets through kernfs_refresh_inode() and goes into
generic_permission().  No locks are held, so kernfs_refresh_inode() from another
thread can run in parallel with generic_permission().

If that's not a problem, why two kernfs_refresh_inode() done in parallel would
be a problem?

Thread 1:
	permission
		done refresh, all locks released now
Thread 2:
	change metadata in kernfs_node
Thread 2:
	permission
		goes into refresh, copying metadata into inode
Thread 1:
		generic_permission()
No locks in common between the last two operations, so
we generic_permission() might see partially updated metadata.
Either we don't give a fuck (in which case I don't understand
what purpose does that ->i_lock serve) *or* we need the exclusion
to cover a wider area.