Re: inode_permission NULL pointer dereference in 3.13-rc1

Al Viro
2013-11-28T21:23:08Z

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 04:26:18PM +0000, Al Viro wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 02:09:06AM -0800, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
>
> > Also if you want to look me into something else feel free - it's very
> > reproducable here. Wish I could be more help here, but with all the
> > RCU and micro optimizations in the path lookup code I can't claim to
> > really understand it anymore.
>
> OK, I've been able to reproduce it and I see at least a part of what's
> going on, but...
>
> What happens is that we get path_init() race with something and leave
> us with nd->path pointing to what used to be pwd but has become a
> negative dentry in process.
>
> AFAICS, it *was* borderline possible to hit before now:
>
> process A and B are CLONE_FS threads and are chdired to /tmp/foo
> A asks for e.g. readlink() on bar
> in path_init() we'd got nd->path (at /tmp/foo) and nd->seq; we are
> in LOOKUP_RCU mode, so nd->path isn't pinned.
> B chdirs them both to /tmp, leaving /tmp/foo not busy
> C rmdirs /tmp/foo
> A sets nd->inode to nd->path.dentry->d_inode, but this sucker has gone
> negative now. Sure, nd->seq doesn't match anymore, but that doesn't
> do us any good - the first thing we'll do in link_path_walk() is
> may_lookup(nd) and it'll blow on attempt to call inode_permission() for
> nd->inode.
>
> What I still do not understand is how the devil is similar race actually
> triggered during shutdown. Digging through that right now...
>
> Anyway, verifying that this is what's going on for particular reproducer
> is easy - add WARN_ON(!nd->inode) in the very end of path_init() and
> see if it triggers.

*grumble*

Looks like adding if (!nd->inode) { a bunch of printks } in the end of
path_init() makes the sucker disappear (so far 2 times out of 2, and
with a test run taking a bit under two hours, well...) The plain
WARN_ON(!nd->inode) in that place triggers just fine.

Another interesting bit of data is that a few minutes delay between ./check
and halt and oops doesn't happen.

So far the catch I've got is:
* a regression in follow_dotdot_rcu(), closed by checking nd->m_seq
in the very end of it. Fix is obvious, obviously needed and it has nothing
to do with that oops.
* a long-standing three-way race in path_init()/chdir(2)/rmdir(2)
(see upthread); it (and its analog for absolute paths, with s/chdir/chroot/)
needs fixing and backporting the fix, the easiest fix probably being "check
nd->seq in the end of LOOKUP_RCU path_init(), fail with -ECHILD on unlikely
mismatch). That one would hit the place where that oops on halt seems to
live, but it's not what we step upon.

What I am seeing (OK, had been seeing until adding those printks) is very
odd - it looks like root and/or pwd of startpar running /etc/rc6.d/* stuff
slaps some negative dentry into nd->path when the shit hits the fan. Right
in path_init()...

Any suggestions re debugging that are welcome; for now I've moved those extra
printks into link_path_walk() (where I already had some, under if (!nd->inode))
and I'm trying to trigger the sucker again ;-/