Re: [PATCH] evm: stop avoidably reading i_writecount in evm_file_release

[Roberto Sassu <roberto.sassu@huaweicloud.com>]

On Tue, 2024-08-06 at 15:36 +0200, Mateusz Guzik wrote:
> The EVM_NEW_FILE flag is unset if the file already existed at the time
> of open and this can be checked without looking at i_writecount.

Agreed. EVM_NEW_FILE is not going to be set during the open(), only
before, in evm_post_path_mknod().

Looks good to me.

Reviewed-by: Roberto Sassu <roberto.sassu@huawei.com>

Thanks

Roberto

> Not accessing it reduces traffic on the cacheline during parallel open
> of the same file and drop the evm_file_release routine from second place
> to bottom of the profile.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@gmail.com>
> ---
> 
> The context is that I'm writing a patch which removes one lockref
> get/put cycle on parallel open. An operational WIP reduces ping-pong in
> that area and made do_dentry_open skyrocket along with evm_file_release,
> due to i_writecount access. With the patch they go down again and
> apparmor takes the rightful first place.
> 
> The patch accounts for about 5% speed up at 20 cores running open3 from
> will-it-scale on top of the above wip. (the apparmor + lockref thing
> really don't scale, that's next)
> 
> I would provide better measurements, but the wip is not ready (as the
> description suggests) and I need evm out of the way for the actual
> patch.
> 
>  security/integrity/evm/evm_main.c | 3 ++-
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/security/integrity/evm/evm_main.c b/security/integrity/evm/evm_main.c
> index 62fe66dd53ce..309630f319e2 100644
> --- a/security/integrity/evm/evm_main.c
> +++ b/security/integrity/evm/evm_main.c
> @@ -1084,7 +1084,8 @@ static void evm_file_release(struct file *file)
>  	if (!S_ISREG(inode->i_mode) || !(mode & FMODE_WRITE))
>  		return;
>  
> -	if (iint && atomic_read(&inode->i_writecount) == 1)
> +	if (iint && iint->flags & EVM_NEW_FILE &&
> +	    atomic_read(&inode->i_writecount) == 1)
>  		iint->flags &= ~EVM_NEW_FILE;
>  }
>