Re: [PATCH v3 1/3] splice: always fsnotify_access(in), fsnotify_modify(out) on success

[Amir Goldstein]

On Tue, Jun 27, 2023 at 7:55 PM Ahelenia Ziemiańska
<nabijaczleweli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> The current behaviour caused an asymmetry where some write APIs
> (write, sendfile) would notify the written-to/read-from objects,
> but splice wouldn't.
>
> This affected userspace which uses inotify, most notably coreutils
> tail -f, to monitor pipes.
> If the pipe buffer had been filled by a splice-family function:
>   * tail wouldn't know and thus wouldn't service the pipe, and
>   * all writes to the pipe would block because it's full,
> thus service was denied.
> (For the particular case of tail -f this could be worked around
>  with ---disable-inotify.)
>
> Fixes: 983652c69199 ("splice: report related fsnotify events")
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-fsdevel/jbyihkyk5dtaohdwjyivambb2gffyjs3dodpofafnkkunxq7bu@jngkdxx65pux/t/#u
> Link: https://bugs.debian.org/1039488
> Signed-off-by: Ahelenia Ziemiańska <nabijaczleweli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: Amir Goldstein <amir73il@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  fs/splice.c | 31 ++++++++++++++-----------------
>  1 file changed, 14 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/fs/splice.c b/fs/splice.c
> index 3e06611d19ae..e16f4f032d2f 100644
> --- a/fs/splice.c
> +++ b/fs/splice.c
> @@ -1154,10 +1154,8 @@ long do_splice(struct file *in, loff_t *off_in, struct file *out,
>                 if ((in->f_flags | out->f_flags) & O_NONBLOCK)
>                         flags |= SPLICE_F_NONBLOCK;
>
> -               return splice_pipe_to_pipe(ipipe, opipe, len, flags);
> -       }
> -
> -       if (ipipe) {
> +               ret = splice_pipe_to_pipe(ipipe, opipe, len, flags);
> +       } else if (ipipe) {
>                 if (off_in)
>                         return -ESPIPE;
>                 if (off_out) {
> @@ -1182,18 +1180,15 @@ long do_splice(struct file *in, loff_t *off_in, struct file *out,
>                 ret = do_splice_from(ipipe, out, &offset, len, flags);
>                 file_end_write(out);
>
> -               if (ret > 0)
> -                       fsnotify_modify(out);
> -
>                 if (!off_out)
>                         out->f_pos = offset;
>                 else
>                         *off_out = offset;
>
> -               return ret;
> -       }
> -
> -       if (opipe) {
> +               // splice_write-> already marked out
> +               // as modified via vfs_iter_write()
> +               goto noaccessout;
> +       } else if (opipe) {
>                 if (off_out)
>                         return -ESPIPE;
>                 if (off_in) {
> @@ -1209,18 +1204,20 @@ long do_splice(struct file *in, loff_t *off_in, struct file *out,
>
>                 ret = splice_file_to_pipe(in, opipe, &offset, len, flags);
>
> -               if (ret > 0)
> -                       fsnotify_access(in);
> -
>                 if (!off_in)
>                         in->f_pos = offset;
>                 else
>                         *off_in = offset;
> +       } else
> +               return -EINVAL;
>
> -               return ret;
> -       }
> +       if (ret > 0)
> +               fsnotify_modify(out);
> +noaccessout:
> +       if (ret > 0)
> +               fsnotify_access(in);
>

As I wrote, I don't like this special case.
I prefer that we generate double IN_MODIFY than
having to maintain unreadable code.

Let's see what Jan has to say about this.

Thanks,
Amir.