Re: [PATCH] Fix Bug 10504 - losetup possible circular locking

[Nikanth Karthikesan <knikanth@suse.de>]

Hi Jens

Did you get to look at this? Can you ACK/NACK this one?

Thanks
Nikanth

On Thursday 12 March 2009 13:41:12 Nikanth Karthikesan wrote:
> With CONFIG_PROVE_LOCKING enabled
>
> $ losetup /dev/loop0 file
> $ losetup -o 32256 /dev/loop1 /dev/loop0
>
> $ losetup -d /dev/loop1
> $ losetup -d /dev/loop0
>
> triggers a [ INFO: possible circular locking dependency detected ]
>
> I think this warning is a false positive.
>
> Open/close on a loop device acquires bd_mutex of the device before
> acquiring lo_ctl_mutex of the same device. For ioctl(LOOP_CLR_FD) after
> acquiring lo_ctl_mutex, fput on the backing_file might acquire the bd_mutex
> of a device, if backing file is a device and this is the last reference to
> the file being dropped . But it is guaranteed that it is impossible to have
> a circular list of backing devices.(say loop2->loop1->loop0->loop2 is not
> possible), which guarantees that this can never deadlock.
>
> So this warning should be suppressed. It is very difficult to annotate
> lockdep not to warn here in the correct way. A simple way to silence
> lockdep could be to mark the lo_ctl_mutex in ioctl to be a sub class, but
> this might mask some other real bugs.
>
> --- a/drivers/block/loop.c
> +++ b/drivers/block/loop.c
> @@ -1164,7 +1164,7 @@ static int lo_ioctl(struct block_device *bdev,
> fmode_t mode, struct loop_device *lo = bdev->bd_disk->private_data;
>  	int err;
>
> -	mutex_lock(&lo->lo_ctl_mutex);
> +	mutex_lock_nested(&lo->lo_ctl_mutex, 1);
>  	switch (cmd) {
>  	case LOOP_SET_FD:
>  		err = loop_set_fd(lo, mode, bdev, arg);
>
> Or actually marking the bd_mutex after lo_ctl_mutex as a sub class could be
> a better solution.
>
> Luckily it is easy to avoid calling fput on backing file with lo_ctl_mutex
> held, so no lockdep annotation is required.
>
> If you do not like the special handling of the lo_ctl_mutex just for the
> LOOP_CLR_FD ioctl in lo_ioctl(), the mutex handling could be moved inside
> each of the individual ioctl handlers and I could send you another patch.
>
> Thanks
> Nikanth Karthikesan
>
> Signed-off-by: Nikanth Karthikesan <knikanth@suse.de>
>
> ---
>
> Fix Bug 10504 - losetup possible circular locking
>
> Avoid triggering a circular dependency warning by calling fput on the
> backing file with lo_ctl_mutex held. If the backing file is a device, fput
> might try to acquire bd_mutex of a that device which triggers a circular
> dependency warning.
>
> diff --git a/drivers/block/loop.c b/drivers/block/loop.c
> index edbaac6..5588f67 100644
> --- a/drivers/block/loop.c
> +++ b/drivers/block/loop.c
> @@ -942,11 +942,18 @@ static int loop_clr_fd(struct loop_device *lo, struct
> block_device *bdev) bd_set_size(bdev, 0);
>  	mapping_set_gfp_mask(filp->f_mapping, gfp);
>  	lo->lo_state = Lo_unbound;
> -	fput(filp);
>  	/* This is safe: open() is still holding a reference. */
>  	module_put(THIS_MODULE);
>  	if (max_part > 0)
>  		ioctl_by_bdev(bdev, BLKRRPART, 0);
> +	mutex_unlock(&lo->lo_ctl_mutex);
> +	/*
> +	 * Need not hold lo_ctl_mutex to fput backing file.
> +	 * Calling fput holding lo_ctl_mutex triggers a circular
> +	 * lock dependency possibility warning as fput can take
> +	 * bd_mutex which is usually taken before lo_ctl_mutex.
> +	 */
> +	fput(filp);
>  	return 0;
>  }
>
> @@ -1173,7 +1180,10 @@ static int lo_ioctl(struct block_device *bdev,
> fmode_t mode, err = loop_change_fd(lo, bdev, arg);
>  		break;
>  	case LOOP_CLR_FD:
> +		/* loop_clr_fd would have unlocked lo_ctl_mutex on success */
>  		err = loop_clr_fd(lo, bdev);
> +		if (!err)
> +			goto out_unlocked;
>  		break;
>  	case LOOP_SET_STATUS:
>  		err = loop_set_status_old(lo, (struct loop_info __user *) arg);
> @@ -1191,6 +1201,8 @@ static int lo_ioctl(struct block_device *bdev,
> fmode_t mode, err = lo->ioctl ? lo->ioctl(lo, cmd, arg) : -EINVAL;
>  	}
>  	mutex_unlock(&lo->lo_ctl_mutex);
> +
> +out_unlocked:
>  	return err;
>  }