Re: [PATCH] xfs: xfs_alloc_fix_minleft can underflow near ENOSPC

Dave Chinner
2015-02-14T23:30:00Z

On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 05:40:29PM -0600, Mark Tinguely wrote:
> On 02/12/15 17:14, Dave Chinner wrote:
> >From: Dave Chinner<dchinner@redhat.com>
> >
> >Test generic/224 is failing with a corruption being detected on one
> >of Michael's test boxes. Debug that Michael added is indicating
> >that the minleft trimming is resulting in an underflow:
> >
> >.....
> > before fixup: rlen 1 args->len 0
> > after xfs_alloc_fix_len : rlen 1 args->len 1
> > before goto out_nominleft: rlen 1 args->len 0
> > before fixup: rlen 1 args->len 0
> > after xfs_alloc_fix_len : rlen 1 args->len 1
> > after fixup: rlen 1 args->len 1
> > before fixup: rlen 1 args->len 0
> > after xfs_alloc_fix_len : rlen 1 args->len 1
> > after fixup: rlen 4294967295 args->len 4294967295
> > XFS: Assertion failed: fs_is_ok, file: fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_alloc.c, line: 1424
> >
> >The "goto out_nominleft:" indicates that we are getting close to
> >ENOSPC in the AG, and a couple of allocations later we underflow
> >and the corruption check fires in xfs_alloc_ag_vextent_size().
> >
> >The issue is that the extent length fixups comaprisons are done
> >with variables of xfs_extlen_t types. These are unsigned so an
> >underflow looks like a really big value and hence is not detected
> >as being smaller than the minimum length allowed for the extent.
> >Hence the corruption check fires as it is noticing that the returned
> >length is longer than the original extent length passed in.
> >
> >This can be easily fixed by ensuring we do the underflow test on
> >signed values, the same way xfs_alloc_fix_len() prevents underflow.
> >So we realise in future that these casts prevent underflows from
> >going undetected, add comments to the code indicating this.
> >
> >Reported-by: Michael L. Semon<mlsemon35@gmail.com>
> >Tested-by: Michael L. Semon<mlsemon35@gmail.com>
> >Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner<dchinner@redhat.com>
> >---
> > fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_alloc.c | 4 +++-
> > 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
>
> int diff = be32_to_cpu(agf->agf_freeblks)
> - args->len - args->minleft;
>

Preconditions:

agf->agf_freeblks = 1
args->len = 1
args->minleft = 2

Therefore, diff = -2

> >@@ -286,7 +287,8 @@ xfs_alloc_fix_minleft(
> > if (diff >= 0)
> > return 1;
>
> If the diff math was done correctly, wouldn't it get caught here?

No, diff < 0.

> > args->len += diff; /* shrink the allocated space */

1 += -2
= -1

> >- if (args->len >= args->minlen)

if (0xffffffff >= 1)

broken.

> >+ /* casts to (int) catch length underflows */
> >+ if ((int)args->len >= (int)args->minlen)

if (-1 >= 1)

correct.

> > return 1;
> > args->agbno = NULLAGBLOCK;
> > return 0;
>
> We can and should fix the wrap in xfs_alloc_fix_minleft() but this
> also points to the fact that xfs_alloc_fix_freelist() is incorrectly
> choosing AGs that will later fail the allocation alignment, minlen,
> and minleft requirements.

I don't think there's a problem there. At least, not the problem I
think you trying to describe.

> You can connect the dots to see how this can lead to a deadlock with
> extent frees. We have seen them. I hacked the XFS code to lead to
> this situation.

You should post the test cases and the patch that exposes the issues
you are concerned about. Otherwise we have no real idea of what
problems you are talking about, and certainly can't reproduce them.

> Also bad is xfs_alloc_vextent() will temporally ignore the minleft
> for the xfs_alloc_fix_freelist() but makes the ag allocator enforce
> the minleft.

Hmmm - I suspect you haven't understood the underlying reason for
setting minleft to zero for the call to xfs_alloc_fix_freelist().
There's are two places we do this: single AG constrainted
allocation, and the "any AG, but near ENOSPC" allocation.

For single AG constrained allocation, minleft is something we can
ignore because we must select that AG for allocation. minleft is
applied against the total allocation requirement, not the minimum
length of allocation that can be done. Hence we might be able to do
a minlen allocation, but we'd reject it because we can't do a maxlen
allocation due to minleft requirements.

Hence we switch off minleft in that case when doing freelist checks
so that we don't reject allocations that could do a minlen
allocation successfully. This requires the low level allocator to be
able to trim back the selected extent from whatever length it finds
to repesect minleft, and if it can't then fail the allocation.
That is the function of xfs_alloc_fix_minleft() - constrain the
allocated extent to the required minleft or fail the allocation.

And for the lowspace algorithm, the reasoning is similar. After two
attempts to allocate in AGs that have enough space for a maxlen
allocation, we switch off minleft so that we only constrain the AG
search to AGs that can definitely satisfy a minlen allocation, hence
improving the chance we can do an allocation successfully near
ENOSPC.

Cheers,

Dave.
--
Dave Chinner
david@fromorbit.com