[PATCH] fs/ext4: fix ABBA deadlock in ext4_rmdir()
From: Sergey Senozhatsky
Date: Thu Aug 27 2026 - 08:52:41 EST
We observe the following ABBA deadlock (casefolding enabled):
INFO: task jbd2/dm-13-8:447 blocked for more than 720 seconds.
task:jbd2/dm-13-8 state:D stack:0 pid:447 tgid:447 ppid:2
Call Trace:
<TASK>
__schedule+0xc2c/0xe60
schedule+0x40/0xe0
jbd2_journal_wait_updates+0x8f/0xf0
jbd2_journal_commit_transaction+0x321/0x1850
kjournald2+0xa9/0x230
kthread+0x226/0x2a0
ret_from_fork+0x101/0x1e0
ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
INFO: task Thread-10:4161 blocked for more than 720 seconds.
task:Thread-10 state:D stack:0 pid:4161 tgid:3848 ppid:540
Call Trace:
<TASK>
__schedule+0xc2c/0xe60
schedule+0x40/0xe0
wait_transaction_locked+0x8c/0xd0
start_this_handle+0x252/0x870
jbd2__journal_start+0x120/0x280
__ext4_journal_start_sb+0x11a/0x250
ext4_evict_inode+0x208/0x760
iput+0x222/0x5c0
dput+0x293/0x690
____fput+0x145/0x2b0
task_work_run+0x7a/0xb0
exit_to_user_mode_loop+0xc0/0xd0
do_syscall_64+0x14b/0xf10
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
NMI backtrace for cpu 0
CPU: 0 UID: 1010216 PID: 4160 Comm: Thread-7
RIP: 0010:d_walk+0x0/0x290
[..]
Call Trace:
<TASK>
shrink_dcache_parent+0xb2/0x100
d_invalidate+0x50/0x110
ext4_rmdir+0x3a2/0x3d0
vfs_rmdir+0x9d/0x1d0
do_rmdir+0xf0/0x330
__x64_sys_unlinkat+0x34/0x50
do_syscall_64+0x61/0xf10
The problem is that ext4_rmdir() calls d_invalidate() before stopping
the jbd2 transaction handle. Because d_invalidate() traverses child
dentries it can encounter dying or in-use dentries. If a concurrent
thread executing __dentry_kill() on a child dentry invokes ext4_evict_inode(),
it requests a new transaction handle via ext4_journal_start(), which
waits for all running handles to close. However, the thread executing
ext4_rmdir() still holds its active transaction handle while looping
in shrink_dcache_parent() waiting for the dying child dentry to complete
eviction.
Stop transaction handle in ext4_rmdir() before calling d_invalidate().
Fixes: b886ee3e778e ("ext4: Support case-insensitive file name lookups")
Co-developed-by: Sarthak Kukreti <sarthakkukreti@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Sarthak Kukreti <sarthakkukreti@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <senozhatsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
fs/ext4/namei.c | 11 ++++++-----
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
diff --git a/fs/ext4/namei.c b/fs/ext4/namei.c
index a6386c1d237f..231a274b814e 100644
--- a/fs/ext4/namei.c
+++ b/fs/ext4/namei.c
@@ -3209,19 +3209,20 @@ static int ext4_rmdir(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry)
ext4_fc_track_unlink(handle, dentry);
retval = ext4_mark_inode_dirty(handle, dir);
+end_rmdir:
+ brelse(bh);
+ if (handle)
+ ext4_journal_stop(handle);
+
/* VFS negative dentries are incompatible with Encoding and
* Case-insensitiveness. Eventually we'll want avoid
* invalidating the dentries here, alongside with returning the
* negative dentries at ext4_lookup(), when it is better
* supported by the VFS for the CI case.
*/
- if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_UNICODE) && IS_CASEFOLDED(dir))
+ if (!retval && IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_UNICODE) && IS_CASEFOLDED(dir))
d_invalidate(dentry);
-end_rmdir:
- brelse(bh);
- if (handle)
- ext4_journal_stop(handle);
return retval;
}
--
2.55.0.897.gb25b4bd76c-goog