Re: fs/attr.c:notify_change locking warning.

Dave Chinner
2013-10-15T21:36:37Z

On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 01:19:05PM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 05, 2013 at 01:19:18PM +1000, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > Yup, we don't hold the i_mutex *at all* through the fast path for
> > direct IO writes. Having to grab the i_mutex on every IO just for
> > the extremely unlikely case we need to remove a suid bit on the file
> > would add a significant serialisation point into the direct Io model
> > that XFS uses, and is the difference between 50,000 and 2+ million
> > direct IO IOPS to a single file.
> >
> > I'm unwilling to sacrifice the concurrency of direct IO writes just
> > to shut up ths warning, especially as the actual modifications that
> > are made to remove SUID bits are correctly serialised within XFS
> > once notify_change() calls ->setattr(). If it really matters, I'll
> > just open code file_remove_suid() into XFS like ocfs2 does just so
> > we don't get that warning being emitted by trinity.
>
> But the i_lock doesn't synchronize against the VFS modifying various
> struct inode fields.

Sure, but file_remove_suid() doesn't actually modify any VFS inode
structures until we process the flags and the modifications within
->setattr, which in XFS are all done under the XFS_ILOCK_EXCL via
xfs_setattr_mode(). i.e. both the VFS and XFS inodes S*ID bits are
removed only under XFS_ILOCK_EXCL....

Hence I see no point in adding extra serialisation via the i_mutex
to this path when we can just do something like:

killsuid = should_remove_suid(file->f_path.dentry);
if (killsuid) {
struct iattr newattr;

newattr.ia_valid = ATTR_FORCE | killsuid;
error = xfs_setattr_nonsize(ip, &newattr, 0);
if (error)
return error;
}

and not require the i_mutex at all...

Indeed, this is exactly what do_truncate() does - the check outside
the i_mutex, then calls notify_change() with the i_mutex held. IOWs,
the i_mutex does nothing to serialise concurrent attempts to check
and remove S*ID bits....

> The right fix is to take i_mutex just in case
> we actually need to remove the suid bit. The patch below should fix it,
> although I need to write a testcase that actually exercises it first.
>
> Dave (J.): if you have time to try the patch below please go ahead,
> if not I'll make sure to write an isolated test ASAP to verify it and
> will then submit the change.
>
> diff --git a/fs/xfs/xfs_file.c b/fs/xfs/xfs_file.c
> index 4c749ab..e879f96 100644
> --- a/fs/xfs/xfs_file.c
> +++ b/fs/xfs/xfs_file.c
> @@ -590,8 +590,22 @@ restart:
> * If we're writing the file then make sure to clear the setuid and
> * setgid bits if the process is not being run by root. This keeps
> * people from modifying setuid and setgid binaries.
> + *
> + * Note that file_remove_suid must be called with the i_mutex held,
> + * so we have to go through some hoops here to make sure we hold it.
> */
> - return file_remove_suid(file);
> + if (!IS_NOSEC(inode) && should_remove_suid(file->f_path.dentry)) {
> + if (*iolock == XFS_IOLOCK_SHARED) {
> + mutex_lock(&inode->i_mutex);
> + error = file_remove_suid(file);
> + mutex_unlock(&inode->i_mutex);

Lock inversion - i_mutex is always outside i_iolock. i.e. this will
deadlock if someone else calls xfs_rw_ilock(XFS_ILOCK_EXCL) at the
same time because we already hold the i_iolock in shared mode. It's
the same case that this function already handles for the EOF zeroing
relocking.

Cheers,

Dave.
--
Dave Chinner
david@fromorbit.com