From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Dave Chinner Subject: Re: [PATCH 01/46] Revert "fs: use RCU read side protection in d_validate" Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 11:44:13 +1100 Message-ID: <20101209004413.GB32766@dastard> References: <2d1d8ffc4acea8b6c4e5b58bb1653b3f0e7071e2.1290852958.git.npiggin@kernel.dk> <20101208011656.GD29333@dastard> <20101208093824.GA3151@amd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Nick Piggin , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org To: Nick Piggin Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20101208093824.GA3151@amd> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 08:38:24PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote: > On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 12:16:56PM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote: > > On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 08:56:03PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote: > > > This reverts commit 3825bdb7ed920845961f32f364454bee5f469abb. > > > > > > Patch is broken, you can't dget() without holding any locks! > > > > I believe you can - for the same reasons we can take a reference to > > an inode without holding the inode_lock. That is, as long as the > > caller already holds an active reference to the dentry, > > dget() can be used to take another reference without needing the > > dcache_lock. > > > > Such usage appears to be described in the comment above dget() and > > there's a BUG_ON() in dget() to catch callers that don't already > > have an active reference. An example of a valid unlocked dget(): > > d_alloc() does an unlocked dget() to take a reference to the parent > > dentry whichn we already are guaranteed to have a reference to. > > Of course you can dget if you already have a reference :) Right, so the commit message is wrong. Can you update it to tell us why dget() can't be used there - the commit message from the second patch explained it far better.... > > As to d_validate() - it depends on the caller behaviour as to > > whether the unlocked dget() is valid or not. From a cursory check > > of the NCP and SMB readdir caches, both appear to hold an active > > reference to the dentry it is passing to d_validate(). > > I don't see where? Can you point to where the refcount is taken? > AFAIKS it drops the reference 3 lines after it puts the pointer > into cache. Yeah, you're right, I missed that one - I spent more tiem checking the validation part of the code than the initial insertion. Hence my request: > > If that is > > the case then there is nothing wrong with the way d_validate uses > > dget(). Can someone with more SMB/NCP expertise than me validate the > > use of cached dentries? > > Then why would it have to use d_validate if it has a reference? > That is supposed to be for an "untrusted" pointer (which is why > it had all the crazy checks that it's in kmem and in the right > slab etc). Code changes. It may not be doing what it was originally needed/intended to be doing - I don't need to waste time on code archeology and second guessing when there are others around that can tell me this off the top oftheir head. ;) Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Chinner david@fromorbit.com