[PATCH] block: Fix race during disk initialization

From: Jan Kara
Date: Thu Sep 16 2010 - 14:21:19 EST


When a new disk is being discovered, add_disk() first ties the bdev to gendisk
(via register_disk()->blkdev_get()) and only after that calls
bdi_register_bdev(). Because register_disk() also creates disk's kobject, it
can happen that userspace manages to open and modify the device's data (or
inode) before its BDI is properly initialized leading to a warning in
__mark_inode_dirty().

Fix the problem by registering BDI early enough.

This patch addresses https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16312

Reported-by: Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx>
---
block/genhd.c | 6 ++++--
1 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

Jens, would you consider merging this fix? The kernel boots with it but
I'm not too familiar with this area of kernel so there can be something subtle
I've missed. So please review. Thanks.

diff --git a/block/genhd.c b/block/genhd.c
index 59a2db6..315afd2 100644
--- a/block/genhd.c
+++ b/block/genhd.c
@@ -541,13 +541,15 @@ void add_disk(struct gendisk *disk)
disk->major = MAJOR(devt);
disk->first_minor = MINOR(devt);

+ /* Register BDI before referencing it from bdev */
+ bdi = &disk->queue->backing_dev_info;
+ bdi_register_dev(bdi, disk_devt(disk));
+
blk_register_region(disk_devt(disk), disk->minors, NULL,
exact_match, exact_lock, disk);
register_disk(disk);
blk_register_queue(disk);

- bdi = &disk->queue->backing_dev_info;
- bdi_register_dev(bdi, disk_devt(disk));
retval = sysfs_create_link(&disk_to_dev(disk)->kobj, &bdi->dev->kobj,
"bdi");
WARN_ON(retval);
--
1.6.4.2

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