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* [PATCH 6.12] backing-file: always end a queued write
@ 2026-11-07 10:59 Amir Goldstein
  2026-11-07 10:59 ` [PATCH 6.18] " Amir Goldstein
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Amir Goldstein @ 2026-11-07 10:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg Kroah-Hartman
  Cc: Sasha Levin, Christian Brauner, Miklos Szeredi, stable,
	linux-unionfs, linux-fsdevel, Chris Mason

From: Chris Mason <mason@kernel.org>

commit 627cdcbc2a2eceb0452078a0c14370f9f1f17a91 upstream.

Writes to a loop device with direct I/O on an overlay file make the
next freeze of the upper filesystem hang for ever.

Every kiocb_start_write() needs a kiocb_end_write(). For a write that
is queued, vfs_iocb_iter_write() leaves the end to the completion, and
backing_aio_rw_complete() only calls kiocb_end_write() when IOCB_WRITE
is set in the flags copied from the submitter. In-kernel submitters
such as loop do not set that flag, so each queued write keeps the
freeze protection of the backing filesystem.

Direct writes to a loop device with direct I/O backed by an overlay
file left fsfreeze of the ext4 upper filesystem, and a later touch
there, blocked in D state. It takes write access to the node of the
loop device, which root has by default, to attach the file and to write.

The fix used here is to mark a write in struct backing_aio and to call
kiocb_end_write() on completion of every marked write.

Reproduced under qemu without KVM, on v7.3-rc6-21-g602042bf29f6 with
earlier fixes of this series applied, with and without this change,
once each. The kernel was not changed for the run. With this change
fsfreeze finished in about a second. Not run: the nvmet and LIO file
backends, which do not set IOCB_WRITE either, FUSE passthrough, and an
xfs upper filesystem.

Fixes: 2406a307ac7d ("ovl: implement async IO routines")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Chris Mason <mason@kernel.org>
[amir: use aio->is_write to explicitly mark a write aio]
Signed-off-by: Amir Goldstein <amir73il@gmail.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20261029180319.2852090-1-amir73il@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner (Amutable) <brauner@kernel.org>
---
[ backport: context: no do_backing_file_write_iter(), the write is marked
  in backing_file_write_iter() ]

 fs/backing-file.c | 5 ++++-
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/backing-file.c b/fs/backing-file.c
--- a/fs/backing-file.c
+++ b/fs/backing-file.c
@@ -83,6 +83,7 @@ struct backing_aio {
 	refcount_t ref;
 	struct kiocb *orig_iocb;
 	/* used for aio completion */
+	bool is_write;
 	void (*end_write)(struct file *, loff_t, ssize_t);
 	struct work_struct work;
 	long res;
@@ -123,7 +124,8 @@ static void backing_aio_rw_complete(struct kiocb *iocb, long res)
 	struct backing_aio *aio = container_of(iocb, struct backing_aio, iocb);
 	struct kiocb *orig_iocb = aio->orig_iocb;
 
-	if (iocb->ki_flags & IOCB_WRITE)
+	/* Pairs with kiocb_start_write() in vfs_iocb_iter_write() */
+	if (aio->is_write)
 		kiocb_end_write(iocb);
 
 	backing_aio_cleanup(aio, res);
@@ -255,6 +257,7 @@ ssize_t backing_file_write_iter(struct file *file, struct iov_iter *iter,
 		if (!aio)
 			goto out;
 
 		aio->orig_iocb = iocb;
+		aio->is_write = true;
 		aio->end_write = ctx->end_write;
 		kiocb_clone(&aio->iocb, iocb, get_file(file));
 		aio->iocb.ki_flags = flags;
-- 
backport


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2026-11-07 10:59 [PATCH 6.12] backing-file: always end a queued write Amir Goldstein
2026-11-07 10:59 ` [PATCH 6.18] " Amir Goldstein
2026-11-07 10:59 ` [PATCH 6.1] " Amir Goldstein
2026-11-07 10:59 ` [PATCH 6.6] " Amir Goldstein

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