Re: [PATCH v4] ext4: validate EA inode i_nlink in ext4_xattr_inode_iget

["Zhou, Yun" <yun.zhou@windriver.com>]

On 6/18/26 04:25, Jan Kara wrote:
> On Mon 15-06-26 13:35:12, Yun Zhou wrote:
>
> --- a/fs/ext4/xattr.c
> +++ b/fs/ext4/xattr.c
> @@ -464,6 +464,33 @@ static int ext4_xattr_inode_iget(struct inode *parent, unsigned long ea_ino,
>                inode_unlock(inode);
>        }
>
> +     /*
> +      * Since this function resolves references from active xattr entries,
> +      * the EA inode must be in active state (i_nlink=1, ref_count>0).
> +      * i_nlink > 1, i_nlink == 0 (dangling reference), or ref_count == 0
> +      * (inconsistent with an active entry) all indicate corruption or
> +      * a concurrent last-reference drop.
> +      */
> +     if (inode->i_nlink != 1 || !ext4_xattr_inode_get_ref(inode)) {
> +             ext4_error(parent->i_sb,
> +                        "EA inode %lu has unexpected i_nlink=%u ref_count=%llu",
> +                        ea_ino, inode->i_nlink,
> +                        ext4_xattr_inode_get_ref(inode));
> Hum, given motivation of this is syzbot corrupted fs image, I'd just put
> check in ext4_iget() verifying ext4_xattr_inode_get_ref() is > 0 and be
> done with it. Much simpler and catches at least the obvious cases. The
> consistency of xattr refcount and i_nlink is otherwise guarded by
> ext4_xattr_inode_update_ref() and it can never be perfect as in the kernel
> we don't have the full view of the filesystem and so cannot ascertain that
> xattr ref count matches reality...
>
Thanks very much for your review and suggestions, The issue should be easily
fixed after "introduce ext4_put_ea_inode() for safe deferred iput" 
merged. Just
need to defer iput() and no longer to make inode bad.