[PATCH 4/4] netfs: Fix netfs_invalidate_folio() to clear dirty bit if all changes gone

David Howells
2026-04-11T08:57:23Z

If a streaming write is made, this will leave the relevant modified folio
in a not-uptodate, but dirty state with a netfs_folio struct hung off of
folio->private indicating the dirty range. Subsequently truncating the
file such that the dirty data in the folio is removed, but the first part
of the folio theoretically remains will cause the netfs_folio struct to be
discarded... but will leave the dirty flag set.

If the folio is then read via mmap(), netfs_read_folio() will see that the
page is dirty and jump to netfs_read_gaps() to fill in the missing bits.
netfs_read_gaps(), however, expects there to be a netfs_folio struct
present and can oops because truncate removed it.

Fix this by calling folio_cancel_dirty() in netfs_invalidate_folio() in the
event that all the dirty data in the folio is erased (as nfs does).

Also add some tracepoints to log modifications to a dirty page.

This can be reproduced with something like:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/xfstest.test/foo bs=1M count=1
umount /xfstest.test
mount /xfstest.test
xfs_io -c "w 0xbbbf 0xf96c" \
-c "truncate 0xbbbf" \
-c "mmap -r 0xb000 0x11000" \
-c "mr 0xb000 0x11000" \
/xfstest.test/foo

with fscaching disabled (otherwise streaming writes are suppressed) and a
change to netfs_perform_write() to disallow streaming writes if the fd is
open O_RDWR:

if (//(file->f_mode & FMODE_READ) || <--- comment this out
netfs_is_cache_enabled(ctx)) {

It should be reproducible even without this change, but if prevents the
above trivial xfs_io command from reproducing it.

Note that the initial dd is important: the file must start out sufficiently
large that the zero-point logic doesn't just clear the gaps because it knows
there's nothing in the file to read yet. Unmounting and mounting is needed to
clear the pagecache (there are other ways to do that that may also work).

This was initially reproduced with the generic/522 xfstest on some patches
that remove the FMODE_READ restriction.

Reported-by: Marc Dionne <marc.dionne@auristor.com>
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
cc: Paulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org>
cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
cc: netfs@lists.linux.dev
cc: linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org
---
fs/netfs/misc.c | 6 +++++-
include/trace/events/netfs.h | 4 ++++
2 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/netfs/misc.c b/fs/netfs/misc.c
index 6df89c92b10b..d8e8a4b59768 100644
--- a/fs/netfs/misc.c
+++ b/fs/netfs/misc.c
@@ -256,6 +256,7 @@ void netfs_invalidate_folio(struct folio *folio, size_t offset, size_t length)
/* Move the start of the data. */
finfo->dirty_len = fend - iend;
finfo->dirty_offset = offset;
+ trace_netfs_folio(folio, netfs_folio_trace_invalidate_front);
return;
}

@@ -264,12 +265,14 @@ void netfs_invalidate_folio(struct folio *folio, size_t offset, size_t length)
*/
if (iend >= fend) {
finfo->dirty_len = offset - fstart;
+ trace_netfs_folio(folio, netfs_folio_trace_invalidate_tail);
return;
}

/* A partial write was split. The caller has already zeroed
* it, so just absorb the hole.
*/
+ trace_netfs_folio(folio, netfs_folio_trace_invalidate_middle);
}
return;

@@ -277,8 +280,9 @@ void netfs_invalidate_folio(struct folio *folio, size_t offset, size_t length)
netfs_put_group(netfs_folio_group(folio));
folio_detach_private(folio);
folio_clear_uptodate(folio);
+ folio_cancel_dirty(folio);
kfree(finfo);
- return;
+ trace_netfs_folio(folio, netfs_folio_trace_invalidate_all);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(netfs_invalidate_folio);

diff --git a/include/trace/events/netfs.h b/include/trace/events/netfs.h
index cbe28211106c..88d814ba1e69 100644
--- a/include/trace/events/netfs.h
+++ b/include/trace/events/netfs.h
@@ -194,6 +194,10 @@
EM(netfs_folio_trace_copy_to_cache, "mark-copy") \
EM(netfs_folio_trace_end_copy, "end-copy") \
EM(netfs_folio_trace_filled_gaps, "filled-gaps") \
+ EM(netfs_folio_trace_invalidate_all, "inval-all") \
+ EM(netfs_folio_trace_invalidate_front, "inval-front") \
+ EM(netfs_folio_trace_invalidate_middle, "inval-mid") \
+ EM(netfs_folio_trace_invalidate_tail, "inval-tail") \
EM(netfs_folio_trace_kill, "kill") \
EM(netfs_folio_trace_kill_cc, "kill-cc") \
EM(netfs_folio_trace_kill_g, "kill-g") \