Re: [PATCH] vfs: avoid spurious dentry ref/unref cycle on open

Mateusz Guzik
2024-08-07T06:40:42Z

On Wed, Aug 7, 2024 at 8:33 AM Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Aug 07, 2024 at 07:23:00AM +0100, Al Viro wrote:
> > After having looked at the problem, how about the following
> > series:
> >
> > 1/5) lift path_get() *AND* path_put() out of do_dentry_open()
> > into the callers. The latter - conditional upon "do_dentry_open()
> > has not set FMODE_OPENED". Equivalent transformation.
> >
> > 2/5) move path_get() we'd lifted into the callers past the
> > call of do_dentry_open(), conditionally collapse it with path_put().
> > You'd get e.g.
> > int vfs_open(const struct path *path, struct file *file)
> > {
> > int ret;
> >
> > file->f_path = *path;
> > ret = do_dentry_open(file, NULL);
> > if (!ret) {
> > /*
> > * Once we return a file with FMODE_OPENED, __fput() will call
> > * fsnotify_close(), so we need fsnotify_open() here for
> > * symmetry.
> > */
> > fsnotify_open(file);
> > }
> > if (file->f_mode & FMODE_OPENED)
> > path_get(path);
> > return ret;
> > }
> >
> > Equivalent transformation, provided that nobody is playing silly
> > buggers with reassigning ->f_path in their ->open() instances.
> > They *really* should not - if anyone does, we'd better catch them
> > and fix them^Wtheir code. Incidentally, if we find any such,
> > we have a damn good reason to add asserts in the callers. As
> > in, "if do_dentry_open() has set FMODE_OPENED, it would bloody
> > better *not* modify ->f_path". <greps> Nope, nobody is that
> > insane.
> >
> > 3/5) split vfs_open_consume() out of vfs_open() (possibly
> > named vfs_open_borrow()), replace the call in do_open() with
> > calling the new function.
> >
> > Trivially equivalent transformation.
> >
> > 4/5) Remove conditional path_get() from vfs_open_consume()
> > and finish_open(). Add
> > if (file->f_mode & FMODE_OPENED)
> > path_get(&nd->path);
> > before terminate_walk(nd); in path_openat().
> >
> > Equivalent transformation - see
> > if (file->f_mode & (FMODE_OPENED | FMODE_CREATED)) {
> > dput(nd->path.dentry);
> > nd->path.dentry = dentry;
> > return NULL;
> > }
> > in lookup_open() (which is where nd->path gets in sync with what
> > had been given to do_dentry_open() in finish_open()); in case
> > of vfs_open_consume() in do_open() it's in sync from the very
> > beginning. And we never modify nd->path after those points.
> > So we can move grabbing it downstream, keeping it under the
> > same condition (which also happens to be true only if we'd
> > called do_dentry_open(), so for all other paths through the
> > whole thing it's a no-op.
> >
> > 5/5) replace
> > if (file->f_mode & FMODE_OPENED)
> > path_get(&nd->path);
> > terminate_walk(nd);
> > with
> > if (file->f_mode & FMODE_OPENED) {
> > nd->path.mnt = NULL;
> > nd->path.dentry = NULL;
> > }
> > terminate_walk(nd);
> > Again, an obvious equivalent transformation.
>
> BTW, similar to that, with that we could turn do_o_path()
> into
>
> struct path path;
> int error = path_lookupat(nd, flags, &path);
> if (!error) {
> audit_inode(nd->name, path.dentry, 0);
> error = vfs_open_borrow(&path, file);
> if (!(file->f_mode & FMODE_OPENED))
> path_put(&path);
> }
> return error;
> }
>
> and perhaps do something similar in the vicinity of
> vfs_tmpfile() / do_o_tmpfile().

That's quite a bit of churn, but if you insist I can take a stab.

fwiw I do think the weird error condition in do_dentry_open can be
used to simplify stuff, which I still do in my v2.

with my approach there is never a path_put needed to backpedal (it was
already done by do_dentry_open *or* it is going to be done by whoever
doing last fput)

then do_o_path would be:
struct path path;
int error = path_lookupat(nd, flags, &path);
if (!error) {
audit_inode(nd->name, path.dentry, 0);
error = vfs_open_consume(&path, file);
}
return error;

--
Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik gmail.com>