Loop on top of NFS hangs kernel

Loop on top of NFS hangs kernel

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Hello all,

I have a small problem with my configuration which results in a deadlock
after ~1 minute. As soon as the copying hangs, I can still switch to another
console but not execute any command or write anything to any disk. SysRq-S
and SysRq-U both never complete and the output of SysRq-P or SysRq-T never
hits the disk.

Steps to reproduce:
mount -t nfs server:/two /mnt/server/
losetup -e twofish /dev/loop0 /mnt/server/file.dat
mount -t ext2 /dev/loop0 /mnt/cryptfs/
cp -a /usr/bin/* /mnt/cryptfs/
<hang>

Kernel is 2.4.18-SuSE. I'm willing to try any 2.4 (or for that matter, 2.5) 
kernel or additional patches if this helps.

_This hang could also be reproduced without any encryption._

The Encryption Howto says the above was not possible with 2.2 kernels back
in 2000. However, I was unable to find anything more recent with google. If
(crypto)loop is still impossible over NFS, can I do something to fix it?
Even a quick hack would be perfect for me.

If the problem is in allocating memory for the loop device, preallocating a
certain amount of memory and limiting request size for above layers to that
amount (or a fraction on it, depending on how much memory for encryption is
needed) should cure the problem, right?
If the problem is in allocating memory for the NFS client, the preallocation
trick should work too. Or am I missing something here?

If fixing this problem is impossible, can we at least disallow the setup of 
loop devices on top of NFS so nobody gets bitten by this one?

Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Carl-Daniel

-- 
Random quote:
That one can't ever actually happen -- it's effectively a default case in a
switch statement which can't ever be reached because we'd never get that far
unless one of the real cases is going to be taken. I think I'll replace the
return statement with panic("The world is broken");
-- David Woodhouse

Re: Loop on top of NFS hangs kernel

[Jari Ruusu]

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> I have a small problem with my configuration which results in a deadlock
> after ~1 minute. As soon as the copying hangs, I can still switch to another
> console but not execute any command or write anything to any disk. SysRq-S
> and SysRq-U both never complete and the output of SysRq-P or SysRq-T never
> hits the disk.
[snip]
> Kernel is 2.4.18-SuSE. I'm willing to try any 2.4 (or for that matter, 2.5)
> kernel or additional patches if this helps.
> 
> _This hang could also be reproduced without any encryption._

Mainline loop is buggy beyod belief (and so was SuSE's last time I looked).
Can you try to reproduce that error with this loop crypto package:

http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-crypto/2002-10/msg00015.html

Twofish cipher in the 'ciphers' package is SuSE compatible with appropriate
mount option. Read README files in the tarballs for more information.

Regards,
Jari Ruusu <jari.ruusu@pp.inet.fi>