Re:Re: [PATCH v11 0/6] ntfs: fix volume flag races and persist the recorded error state

From: dd

Date: Tue Sep 15 2026 - 02:54:13 EST




At 2026-09-15 13:48:05, "Hyunchul Lee" <hyc.lee@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Hi Hongling,
>
>Thank you, and this patch set looks good to me.
>
>As a follow up, it would be useful to discuss making volume dirty
>when an RW mount is established and clearing it only after a clean
>unmount.
>
>The current implementation still has a window where metadata
>changes may be written while the on-disk volume flag is still
>clean, and also does not clear the dirty volume for sync(2).
>
Hi Hyunchul,

Thank you for the review and for confirming that the patch set looks
good.

I agree that marking the volume dirty when establishing an RW mount,
and clearing it only after a clean unmount, would close the remaining
window before the first metadata update. I also agree that sync(2)
should not clear the volume dirty flag, since the filesystem remains
writable after sync completes.

I will follow up with a separate patch/discussion for this behavior.

Thanks,
Hongling
>2026년 9월 14일 (월) 오후 2:49, Hongling Zeng <zenghongling@xxxxxxxxxx>님이 작성:
>>
>> The fs/ntfs runtime metadata-corruption paths only record the in-memory
>> NVolErrors() flag, and the caller-side dirty-bit marking races with
>> ntfs_sync_fs(): a volume can end up with a clean on-disk dirty flag
>> despite modification or recorded corruption, so chkdsk never runs on
>> the next mount. Based on ntfs/ntfs-next (9a05b5715cfa).
>>
>> 1/4 makes the volume flag read-modify-write atomic under the
>> $Volume mrec_lock;
>> 2/4 marks the volume dirty unconditionally on metadata changes,
>> dropping the racy caller-side checks in file.c and namei.c;
>> 3/4 derives the on-disk dirty bit from the recorded error state at
>> the persistence points (sync_fs, remount-ro, put_super) and never
>> writes a hibernated volume;
>> 4/4 persists the dirty state after the final put_super() commits so
>> late errors cannot unmount clean.
>>
>> Changes in v11:
>>
>> - Add 5/6: Stop clearing VOLUME_IS_DIRTY during sync. The bit is now
>> cleared only on remount to read-only or clean unmount, preventing a
>> crash during metadata updates from bypassing chkdsk. Verified in QEMU.
>>
>> - Add 6/6: Check commit and flush errors during remount and unmount.
>> Re-check NInoDirty() after __ntfs_write_inode(). A failed remount is
>> rejected so unmount can retry; unmount failures are reported as warnings.
>>
>>
>> Hongling Zeng (4):
>> ntfs: fix volume flag update races
>> ntfs: set the volume dirty bit unconditionally on metadata changes
>> ntfs: sync the volume dirty bit with the recorded error state
>> ntfs: persist the dirty state after the final put_super() commits
>>
>> fs/ntfs/file.c | 20 ++---
>> fs/ntfs/namei.c | 24 ++----
>> fs/ntfs/ntfs.h | 1 -
>> fs/ntfs/super.c | 191 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------
>> fs/ntfs/volume.h | 4 +
>> 5 files changed, 171 insertions(+), 69 deletions(-)
>>
>> --
>> 2.25.1
>>
>
>
>--
>Thanks,
>Hyunchul