Re: msync(2) bug(?), returns AOP_WRITEPAGE_ACTIVATE to userland

From: Erez Zadok
Date: Thu Nov 08 2007 - 21:52:56 EST


In message <1194280730.6271.145.camel@localhost>, Dave Hansen writes:
> On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 15:40 +0000, Hugh Dickins wrote:
[...]
> I have a decent guess what the bug is, too. In the unionfs code:
>
> > int init_lower_nd(struct nameidata *nd, unsigned int flags)
> > {
> > ...
> > #ifdef ALLOC_LOWER_ND_FILE
> > file = kzalloc(sizeof(struct file), GFP_KERNEL);
> > if (unlikely(!file)) {
> > err = -ENOMEM;
> > break; /* exit switch statement and thus return */
> > }
> > nd->intent.open.file = file;
> > #endif /* ALLOC_LOWER_ND_FILE */
>
> The r/o bind mount code will mnt_drop_write() on that file's f_vfsmnt at
> __fput() time. Since that code never got a write on the mount, we'll
> see an imbalance if the file was opened for a write. I don't see this
> file's mnt set anywhere, so I'm not completely sure that this is it. In
> any case, rolling your own 'struct file' without using alloc_file() and
> friends is a no-no.
[...]

This #ifdef'd code in unionfs is actually not enabled. I left it there as a
reminder of possible future things to come (esp. if nameidata gets split).
There's a related comment earlier in fs/unionfs/lookup.c:init_lower_nd()
that says:

#ifdef ALLOC_LOWER_ND_FILE
/*
* XXX: one day we may need to have the lower return an open file
* for us. It is not needed in 2.6.23-rc1 for nfs2/nfs3, but may
* very well be needed for nfs4.
*/
struct file *file;
#endif /* ALLOC_LOWER_ND_FILE */

In the interest of keeping unionfs as simple as I can, when I implemented
the whole "pass a lower nd" stuff, I left thos bits of semi-experimental
#ifdef code for this lower file upon open-intent. It's not enabled and up
until now, it didn't seem to be needed.

Do you think unionfs has to start using this nd->intent.open.file stuff?

Thanks,
Erez.
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