Re: [RFC][PATH 4/4] ovl: relax lock_rename when moving files between work and upper dir

[Al Viro <viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk>]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 01:33:08AM +0200, Amir Goldstein wrote:

> I am certainly looking for this feedback, because there is no other means for
> me to sanity test if relaxing lock_rename() is safe.
> 
> When I write "any change of parent" I mean a change between 2 different
> connected parents. Both work dir and upper dir are connected and with
> reference held after mount.
> Are the d_splice_alias() and __d_unalias() cases a real concern for moving
> work dir around after the overlay mount??

Why not?  Again, it's really up to you to provide an analysis of the call
chains.  There's nothing in d_splice_alias() to prohibit an existing alias
being attached - in fact, __d_unalias() is called exactly in that case.
It's a rare case, all right, but it is not impossible.

BTW, your analysis would better be simple and explicit - anything subtle
will be flat-out rejected, since it would have to be stepped around very
carefully in any later work in VFS.

I really wonder what it is that you are getting contention on - what are
you doing, besides the actual renames?  And that needs serialization anyway
(on inode lock of workdir, if nothing else), so any contention would not
disappear from dropped ->s_vfs_rename_mutex...