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Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2016 23:19:31 +0000
From: Al Viro <viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk>
To: Ross Zwisler <ross.zwisler@linux.intel.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	"J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@fieldses.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>,
	Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>, Jan Kara <jack@suse.com>,
	Jeff Layton <jlayton@poochiereds.net>,
	Matthew Wilcox <willy@linux.intel.com>,
	linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-nvdimm@ml01.01.org,
	xfs@oss.sgi.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] dax: allow DAX to look up an inode's block device
Message-ID: <20160202231931.GR17997@ZenIV.linux.org.uk>
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On Tue, Feb 02, 2016 at 04:11:42PM -0700, Ross Zwisler wrote:

> However, for raw block devices and for XFS with a real-time device, the
> value in inode->i_sb->s_bdev is not correct.  With the code as it is
> currently written, an fsync or msync to a DAX enabled raw block device will
> cause a NULL pointer dereference kernel BUG.  For this to work correctly we
> need to ask the block device or filesystem what struct block_device is
> appropriate for our inode.
> 
> To that end, add a get_bdev(struct inode *) entry point to struct
> super_operations.  If this function pointer is non-NULL, this notifies DAX
> that it needs to use it to look up the correct block_device.  If
> i_sb->get_bdev() is NULL DAX will default to inode->i_sb->s_bdev.

Umm...  It assumes that bdev will stay pinned for as long as inode is
referenced, presumably?  If so, that needs to be documented (and verified
for existing fs instances).  In principle, multi-disk fs might want to
support things like "silently move the inodes backed by that disk to other
ones"...