[PATCH] fs: drop the lock trip around I_NEW wake up in evict()
From: Mateusz Guzik
Date: Mon Mar 17 2025 - 12:12:05 EST
The unhashed state check in __wait_on_freeing_inode() performed with
->i_lock held against remove_hash_inode() also holding the lock makes
another lock acquire in evict() completely spurious -- all potential
sleepers already dropped the lock before remove_hash_inode() acquired
it or they found the inode to be unhashed and aborted.
Note there is no trickery here: the usual cost of both sides taking
locks is still being paid, it just stops being paid twice.
Signed-off-by: Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@xxxxxxxxx>
---
fs/inode.c | 19 ++++++-------------
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)
diff --git a/fs/inode.c b/fs/inode.c
index 10121fc7b87e..4c3be44838a5 100644
--- a/fs/inode.c
+++ b/fs/inode.c
@@ -816,23 +816,16 @@ static void evict(struct inode *inode)
/*
* Wake up waiters in __wait_on_freeing_inode().
*
- * Lockless hash lookup may end up finding the inode before we removed
- * it above, but only lock it *after* we are done with the wakeup below.
- * In this case the potential waiter cannot safely block.
+ * It is an invariant that any thread we need to wake up is already
+ * accounted for before remove_inode_hash() acquires ->i_lock -- both
+ * sides take the lock and sleep is aborted if the inode is found
+ * unhashed. Thus either the sleeper wins and goes off CPU, or removal
+ * wins and the sleeper aborts after testing with the lock.
*
- * The inode being unhashed after the call to remove_inode_hash() is
- * used as an indicator whether blocking on it is safe.
+ * This also means we don't need any fences for the call below.
*/
- spin_lock(&inode->i_lock);
- /*
- * Pairs with the barrier in prepare_to_wait_event() to make sure
- * ___wait_var_event() either sees the bit cleared or
- * waitqueue_active() check in wake_up_var() sees the waiter.
- */
- smp_mb__after_spinlock();
inode_wake_up_bit(inode, __I_NEW);
BUG_ON(inode->i_state != (I_FREEING | I_CLEAR));
- spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock);
destroy_inode(inode);
}
--
2.43.0