Re: [PATCH 2/2] nvme: drop WARN_ON_ONCE on write_stream bounds check

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

On Mon, Jul 27, 2026 at 08:24:40AM -0600, Keith Busch wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 25, 2026 at 03:51:11PM +0200, Hari Mishal wrote:
> > write_stream is validated against bdev_max_write_streams() in both
> > generic block direct I/O (block/fops.c) and F2FS before a bio
> > carrying it is ever built, so write_stream > nr_plids shouldn't be
> > reachable through any current legitimate path. The remaining users
> > of bio->bi_write_stream elsewhere in the block layer only copy an
> > already-validated value between bios (bio.c, blk-crypto-fallback.c)
> > or compare it for merge eligibility (blk-merge.c); none of them
> > introduce a new, unvalidated value.
> > 
> > Using WARN_ON_ONCE as the backstop for that assumption isn't worth
> > it given how many deployed systems run with panic-on-warn enabled;
> > the existing graceful return BLK_STS_INVAL already handles it on
> > its own.
> 
> That's not a very good reason to remove a WARN_ON. You've left the check
> in for a condition that should never happen, so when it does happen,
> it'll be impossible to debug without the WARN.
> 
> And the WARN also annotates the branch as unlikely, which is desirable
> for this case.

But, if it ever does happen, a WARN_ON will reboot the box, given that
billions of Linux systems have panic-on-warn enabled.  So if this can
ever happen, just properly handle it and recover and don't loose user
data.

thanks,

greg k-h