Re: [PATCH] Prevent creation of files larger than RLIMIT_FSIZE using fallocate

[Nikanth Karthikesan <knikanth@suse.de>]

On Monday 03 May 2010 12:29:45 Amit K. Arora wrote:
> On Mon, May 03, 2010 at 09:53:44AM +0530, Nikanth Karthikesan wrote:
> > On Saturday 01 May 2010 12:34:26 Amit K. Arora wrote:
> > > On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 02:33:19PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > > Also, there doesn't seem to be much point in doing
> > > >
> > > > 	mutex_lock(i_mutex);
> > > > 	if (some_condition)
> > > > 		bale out
> > > > 	mutex_unlock(i_mutex);
> > > >
> > > > 	<stuff>
> > > >
> > > > because `some_condition' can now become true before or during the
> > > > execution of `stuff'.
> > > >
> > > > IOW, it's racy.
> >
> > oh, yes. :(
> >
> > > Agreed. How about doing this check in the filesystem specific fallocate
> > > inode routines instead ? For example, in ext4 we could do :
> >
> > I guess, calling the filesystem specific fallocate with the lock held
> > would create lock ordering problems? If so, this might be the only way.
> > But it would be better to document at the call site, that the callee
> > should check for RLIMIT_FSIZE.
> 
> Hmm.. I never said to call the filesystem specific fallocate with
> i_mutex held. What I suggested was that each filesystem at some point
> anyhow takes the i_mutex to preallocate. Thats where the check should
> be, to avoid the race. This is what the example patch below does.
> 

Yes, you never said that. But I just wondered whether that would be have 
problems and doing the check in filesystem specific fallocate is the only 
solution. :)

Thanks
Nikanth