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

Dave Chinner
2024-08-06T22:51:11Z

On Tue, Aug 06, 2024 at 04:46:28PM +0200, Mateusz Guzik wrote:
> error = may_open(idmap, &nd->path, acc_mode, open_flag);
> - if (!error && !(file->f_mode & FMODE_OPENED))
> - error = vfs_open(&nd->path, file);
> + if (!error && !(file->f_mode & FMODE_OPENED)) {
> + BUG_ON(nd->state & ND_PATH_CONSUMED);

Please don't litter new code with random BUG_ON() checks. If this
every happens, it will panic a production kernel and the fix will
generate a CVE.

Given that these checks should never fire in a production kernel
unless something is corrupting memory (i.e. the end is already
near), these should be considered debug assertions and we should
treat them that way from the start.

i.e. we really should have a VFS_ASSERT() or VFS_BUG_ON() (following
the VM_BUG_ON() pattern) masked by a CONFIG_VFS_DEBUG option so they
are only included into debug builds where there is a developer
watching to debug the system when one of these things fires.

This is a common pattern for subsystem specific assertions. We do
this in all the major filesystems, the MM subsystem does this
(VM_BUG_ON), etc. Perhaps it is time to do this in the VFS code as
well....

-Dave.
--
Dave Chinner
david@fromorbit.com