Re: Ext2 - ext3 unstable under 2.6.24: now solved (?)

Andreas Dilger
2008-03-05T00:22:54Z

On Mar 05, 2008 03:42 +0800, Hein_Tibosch wrote:
> Could someone please check the following?
>
> The ext2 and ext3 filesystems of 2.6.24 show many Oops and hangups. After
> debugging I found the following common cause:
>
> In a new 2.6.24 function an unwanted sign-extension takes place in:
>
> fs/ext2/dir.c
>
> static inline unsigned ext2_rec_len_from_disk(__le16 dlen)
> {
> unsigned len = le16_to_cpu(dlen);
>
> if (len == EXT2_MAX_REC_LEN)
> return 1 << 16;
> return len;
> }
>
> include/ext3_fs.h :
>
> static inline unsigned ext3_rec_len_from_disk(__le16 dlen)
> {
> unsigned len = le16_to_cpu(dlen);
>
> if (len == EXT3_MAX_REC_LEN)
> return 1 << 16;
> return len;
> }
>
> 00A0 will be returned as 0xFFFFA000 !!

Presumably this is a big-endian architecture? It would appear to be a bug
in the le16_to_cpu() code rather than the functions above, since they are
always using an unsigned variable.

I suppose it would be possible to mask off the returned value, but this
seems like it is fixing the problem at the wrong level:

return (len & 0xffffU);

> Many code which iterates through dirent's, uses the above function to
> determine the start of the next dirent.(ext2_dirent, ext3_dir_entry_2)
> See fs/ext2/dir.c and fs/ext3/namei.c
>
> As a test I replaced "le16_to_cpu()" by a simple:
>
> static inline unsigned my_le16_to_cpu (__le16 value)
> {
> return ((value & 0x00FF) << 8) | ((value & 0xFF00) >> 8);
> }
>
> It showed no more "negative" rec_len values which cause the crashes, and
> both ext2/3 now run stable.
>
> Compiler: gcc version 4.1.2 (Ubuntu 4.1.2-0ubuntu4)
> Kernel: 2.6.24.atmel.1
> Platform: Atmel AP7000 CPU, compiling with "ARCH=avr32
> CROSS_COMPILE=avr32-linux-"
>
>
> Hein Tibosch
>
>
> Haavard Skinnemoen wrote:
>> (Adding the ext2/ext3/ext4 list to Cc)
>>
>> Note that the MMC/SD card driver in question, atmel-mci, is not in
>> mainline, and may be the real cause of this problem. But it looks like
>> there might be a potential problem in the ext3 code as well?
>>
>> Haavard
>>
>> On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:17:04 +0800
>> Hein_Tibosch <hein_tibosch@yahoo.es> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hi James,
>>>
>>>
>>> I've had all kinds of problems with the SD-card hooked to an NGW100, just as John Voltz reported earlier:
>>>
>>> http://www.avr32linux.org/archives/kernel/2007-November/000421.html
>>> http://www.avr32linux.org/archives/kernel/2007-November/000425.html
>>>
>>> I debugged this problem and my conclusion is: using an SD-card may lead to both BUS-errors and a complete hanging of the system, with 2.6.23.atmel.5 as well as 2.6.24.atmel.1.
>>>
>>> Both the driver for ext2 and ext3 are using this type of function to iterate through a array of inodes:
>>>
>>> static inline ext2_dirent *ext2_next_entry(ext2_dirent *p)
>>> {
>>> return (ext2_dirent *)((char*)p + le16_to_cpu(p->rec_len));
>>> }
>>>
>>> static inline struct ext3_dir_entry_2 *
>>> ext3_next_entry(struct ext3_dir_entry_2 *p)
>>> {
>>> return (struct ext3_dir_entry_2 *)((char *)p +
>>> ext3_rec_len_from_disk(p->rec_len));
>>> }
>>>
>>>
>>> Sometimes, rec_len is checked for a zero-value, sometimes the entry is checked thoroughly for validity (like with ext2_check_page() or ext3_check_dir_entry()), but in other cases rec_len isn't checked at all! This is the case in e.g. fs/ext3/namei.c, function ext3_dx_find_entry(). This function is always enabled since 2.6.24 (CONFIG_EXT3_INDEX not used anymore).
>>>
>>> I had a card on which at one place rec_len turned out to be a small negative number. When iterating, it would either cycle for ever (until WDT) or it could enter invalid memory (OOPS: BUS error).
>>>
>>> ( strange though that the rec_len appeared to have a negative number, I just did a "mkfs -t ext3" on Ubuntu. Could that be caused by the Atmel-driver? )
>>>
>>> I don't yet feel qualified to make a patch for this, I only did it for myself. Maybe someone can pick this up: a validity check should be made before any call to xxx_next_entry().
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Hein Tibosch (HeinBali at avr32linux)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> James Stewart wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> I'm wondering if there are any known issues with booting from SD card on
>>> the ATNGW100 using this kernel. I get a bunch of ext2 looking errors and
>>> then a stack dump immediately after mounting VFS. 2.6.23.atmel.5 runs
>>> perfectly, however.
>>> This is just compiling using atngw100_defconfig.
>>> Thanks,
>>> James
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Kernel mailing list
>>> Kernel@avr32linux.org
>>> http://duppen.flaskehals.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kernel
>>>
>>
>>
>
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Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
Sr. Staff Engineer, Lustre Group
Sun Microsystems of Canada, Inc.