Re: fun with d_invalidate() vs. d_splice_alias() was Re: [f2fs-dev] [PATCH v6 0/9] Support negative dentries on case-insensitive ext4 and f2fs

Eric W. Biederman
2023-11-29T15:19:53Z

Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> writes:

> On Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 06:38:43AM +0000, Al Viro wrote:
>
>> > FWIW, I suspect that the right answer would be along the lines of
>> > * if d_splice_alias() does move an exsiting (attached) alias in
>> > place, it ought to dissolve all mountpoints in subtree being moved.
>> > There might be subtleties,
>
> Are there ever... Starting with the "our test for loop creation
> (alias is a direct ancestor, need to fail with -ELOOP) is dependent
> upon rename_lock being held all along".
>
> Folks, what semantics do we want for dissolving mounts on splice?
> The situation when it happens is when we have a subtree on e.g. NFS
> and have some mounts (on client) inside that. Then somebody on
> server moves the root of that subtree somewhere else and we try
> to do a lookup in new place. Options:
>
> 1) our dentry for directory that got moved on server is moved into
> new place, along with the entire subtree *and* everything mounted
> on it. Very dubious semantics, especially since if we look the
> old location up before looking for new one, the mounts will be
> dissolved; no way around that.
>
> 2) lookup fails. It's already possible; e.g. if server has
> /srv/nfs/1/2/3 moved to /srv/nfs/x, then /srv/nfs/1/2 moved
> to /srv/nfs/x/y and client has a process with cwd in /mnt/nfs/1/2/3
> doing a lookup for "y", there's no way in hell to handle that -
> the lookup will return the fhandle of /srv/nfs/x, which is the
> same thing the client has for /mnt/nfs/1/2; we *can't* move that
> dentry to /mnt/nfs/1/2/3/y - not without creating a detached loop.
> We can also run into -ESTALE if one of the trylocks in
> __d_unalias() fails. Having the same happen if there are mounts
> in the subtree we are trying to splice would be unpleasant, but
> not fatal. The trouble is, that won't be a transient failure -
> not until somebody tries to look the old location up.
>
> 3) dissolve the mounts. Doable, but it's not easy; especially
> since we end up having to redo the loop-prevention check after
> the mounts had been dissolved. And that check may be failing
> by that time, with no way to undo that dissolving...

To be clear this is a change in current semantics and has a minuscule
change of resulting in a regression. That should be called out in the
change log.

If we choose to change the semantics I would suggest that the new
semantics be:

If a different name for a directory already exists:
* Detach the mounts unconditionally (leaving dentry descendants alone).
* Attempt the current splice.
- If the splice succeeds ( return the new dentry )
- If the splice fails ( fail the lookup, and d_invalidate the existing name )

Unconditionally dissolving the mounts before attempting the rename
should simplify everything.

In the worst case a race between d_invalidate and d_splice_alias will
now become a race to see who can detach the mounts first.

Eric