• Andrew Morton's avatar
    [PATCH] sysfs_remove_dir-vs-dcache_readdir race fix · f8f71d1b
    Andrew Morton authored
    From: Maneesh Soni <maneesh@in.ibm.com>
    
    I have re-done the patch fixing the race between sysfs_remove_dir() and
    dcache_readdir().  If you recall, sysfs_remove_dir(kobj) manipulates the
    ->d_subdirs list for the dentry corresponding to the sysfs directory being
    removed.  It can end up deleting the cursor dentry which is added to the
    ->d_subdirs list during a concurrent dcache_dir_open() ==> dcache_readdir()
    for the same directory.  And as a result dcache_readdir() can loop for ever
    holding dcache_lock.
    
    The earlier patch which was included in -mm1 created problems which
    resulted in list_del() BUG hits in prune_dcache().  The reason I think is
    that in the main loop in sysfs_remove_dir(), dcache_lock is dropped and
    re-acquired, and this could result in inconsistent ->d_subdirs list and
    prune_dcache() may try to delete an already deleted dentry.  I have
    corrected this in the new patch as below.
    
    I could do sysfs_remove_dir() more neatly on sysfs backing store patch set
    as there I don't use the ->d_subdirs list.  Instead the list of children
    sysfs_dirent works out well.  But untill sysfs backing store patch is
    picked up the existing code suffer from this race.  This can be easily
    tested by running following two loops on a SMP box
    
    # while true; do insmod drivers/net/dummy.ko; rmmod dummy; done
    # while true; do find /sys/class/net > /dev/null; done
    
    
    o This patch fixes sysfs_remove_dir race with dcache_readdir.  There is
      no need for sysfs_remove_dir to modify the d_subdirs list for the
      directory being deleted as it is taken care in the final dput.  Modifying
      this list results in inconsistent d_subdirs list and causes infinite loop
      in concurrently occurring dcache_readdir.
    
    o The main loop is restarted every time, dcache_lock is re-acquired in
      order to maintain consistency.
    f8f71d1b
dir.c 3.66 KB