Re: [PATCH v5] fs: add predicts based on nd->depth

[Chris Mason <clm@meta.com>]

On Wed, 19 Nov 2025 15:29:54 +0100 Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

I ran some of the recent commits through the AI review prompts and it
flagged this one.  The comments look right to me:

[ ... ]

> diff --git a/fs/namei.c b/fs/namei.c
> index a5bffc2a29f6c..5fbb05fb96b75 100644
> --- a/fs/namei.c
> +++ b/fs/namei.c

[ ... ]

> @@ -882,7 +883,7 @@ static bool try_to_unlazy(struct nameidata *nd)
>
>  	BUG_ON(!(nd->flags & LOOKUP_RCU));
>
> -	if (unlikely(!legitimize_links(nd)))
> +	if (unlikely(nd->depth && !legitimize_links(nd)))
>  		goto out1;

When nd->depth is 0, this short-circuits and never calls legitimize_links().
However, legitimize_links() contains a LOOKUP_CACHED check that was moved
there in commit b93a6e389bdc7 ("fix handling of nd->depth on LOOKUP_CACHED
failures in try_to_unlazy*"):

    static bool legitimize_links(struct nameidata *nd)
    {
        if (unlikely(nd->flags & LOOKUP_CACHED)) {
            drop_links(nd);
            nd->depth = 0;
            return false;
        }
        ...
    }

Before that commit, the LOOKUP_CACHED check was done directly in
try_to_unlazy() before calling legitimize_links(). It was moved into
legitimize_links() for consolidation, not because it's semantically
related to having links.

With LOOKUP_CACHED set (used by io_uring for non-blocking opens) and
nd->depth == 0, try_to_unlazy() now proceeds to legitimize_path() and may
succeed, when previously it would have failed. This can cause
lookup_fast()->try_to_unlazy() to succeed, leading the caller to call
lookup_slow() which takes inode_lock_shared() and blocks - violating
LOOKUP_CACHED semantics.

Should the LOOKUP_CACHED check be moved back to try_to_unlazy() before
the depth check, like:

    if (unlikely(nd->flags & LOOKUP_CACHED))
        goto out1;
    if (unlikely(nd->depth && !legitimize_links(nd)))
        goto out1;

>  	if (unlikely(!legitimize_path(nd, &nd->path, nd->seq)))
>  		goto out;

[ ... ]

> @@ -917,7 +918,7 @@ static bool try_to_unlazy_next(struct nameidata *nd, struct dentry *dentry)
>  	int res;
>  	BUG_ON(!(nd->flags & LOOKUP_RCU));
>
> -	if (unlikely(!legitimize_links(nd)))
> +	if (unlikely(nd->depth && !legitimize_links(nd)))
>  		goto out2;

The same issue applies here in try_to_unlazy_next().

[ ... ]


-chris