Date:	Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:35:33 -0600
From:	Ben Myers <bpm@....com>
To:	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc:	Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, stable@...r.kernel.org,
	Dave Chinner <dchinner@...hat.com>,
	Brian Foster <bfoster@...hat.com>,
	CAI Qian <caiqian@...hat.com>, xfs@....sgi.com
Subject: Re: [ 68/89] xfs: fix _xfs_buf_find oops on blocks beyond the
 filesystem end

Hey Greg,

On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 12:05:01PM -0800, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 01:55:12PM -0600, Ben Myers wrote:
> > Greg,
> > 
> > On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 11:26:14AM -0800, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > > On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 11:07:30AM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > > > [cc xfs@....sgi.com]
> > > > 
> > > > On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 08:18:45AM -0800, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 04:30:32PM +0100, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > > > > > Il 01/02/2013 14:08, Greg Kroah-Hartman ha scritto:
> > > > > > > 3.7-stable review patch.  If anyone has any objections, please let me know.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > ------------------
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > From: Dave Chinner <dchinner@...hat.com>
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > commit eb178619f930fa2ba2348de332a1ff1c66a31424 upstream.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > When _xfs_buf_find is passed an out of range address, it will fail
> > > > > > > to find a relevant struct xfs_perag and oops with a null
> > > > > > > dereference. This can happen when trying to walk a filesystem with a
> > > > > > > metadata inode that has a partially corrupted extent map (i.e. the
> > > > > > > block number returned is corrupt, but is otherwise intact) and we
> > > > > > > try to read from the corrupted block address.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > In this case, just fail the lookup. If it is readahead being issued,
> > > > > > > it will simply not be done, but if it is real read that fails we
> > > > > > > will get an error being reported.  Ideally this case should result
> > > > > > > in an EFSCORRUPTED error being reported, but we cannot return an
> > > > > > > error through xfs_buf_read() or xfs_buf_get() so this lookup failure
> > > > > > > may result in ENOMEM or EIO errors being reported instead.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > It looks like this breaks xfs_growfs.  See
> > > > > > http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=909602.
> > > > 
> > > > Entirely possible, as the filesystem size is not updated until after
> > > > all the new metadata is written to disk. in 3.8, there's this commit:
> > > > 
> > > > commit fd23683c3b1ab905cba61ea2981c156f4bf52845
> > > > Author: Dave Chinner <dchinner@...hat.com>
> > > > Date:   Mon Nov 12 22:53:59 2012 +1100
> > > > 
> > > >     xfs: growfs: use uncached buffers for new headers
> > > >     
> > > >     When writing the new AG headers to disk, we can't attach write
> > > >     verifiers because they have a dependency on the struct xfs-perag
> > > >     being attached to the buffer to be fully initialised and growfs
> > > >     can't fully initialise them until later in the process.
> > > >     
> > > >     The simplest way to avoid this problem is to use uncached buffers
> > > >     for writing the new headers. These buffers don't have the xfs-perag
> > > >     attached to them, so it's simple to detect in the write verifier and
> > > >     be able to skip the checks that need the xfs-perag.
> > > >     
> > > >     This enables us to attach the appropriate buffer ops to the buffer
> > > >     and henc calculate CRCs on the way to disk. IT also means that the
> > > >     buffer is torn down immediately, and so the first access to the AG
> > > >     headers will re-read the header from disk and perform full
> > > >     verification of the buffer. This way we also can catch corruptions
> > > >     due to problems that went undetected in growfs.
> > > >     
> > > >     Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@...hat.com>
> > > >     Reviewed-by Rich Johnston <rjohnston@....com>
> > > >     Signed-off-by: Ben Myers <bpm@....com>
> > > > 
> > > > As part of the metadata verifier feature. It means that growfs no
> > > > longer uses cached buffers, and hence does not pass through
> > > > _xfs_buf_find() and hence will not trigger the beyond-EOFS that the
> > > > above commit adds.
> > > > 
> > > > > Ick, not good.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Dave, any thoughts here?  Should I drop this from the 3.7-stable queue?
> > > > 
> > > > Yeah, drop it.
> > > > 
> > > > But what I'm now wondering is how this patch got proposed for
> > > > 3.7-stable. I don't recall seeing anything about this being
> > > > proposed.
> > > > 
> > > > <trolls email archives>
> > > > 
> > > > Oh, it happened while I was at LCA and didn't have any access to Red
> > > > Hat email and there was a private thread about it. By the time I
> > > > read it the stable kernel was already released and so it immediately
> > > > dropped from my attention.
> > > > 
> > > > XFS Maintainers: Major process fail. Patches that are being proposed
> > > > for backports need to be posted to the XFS list, reviewed and tested
> > > > before saying they are OK to go.  We have several growfs tests in
> > > > xfstests would have failed if this was actually tested.
> > > > 
> > > > Stable folk: This is the reason why I, quite frankly, don't want to
> > > > support stable kernels *at all*. The overhead of backporting and
> > > > testing a patch to a single kernel target to ensure there are no
> > > > unintended regressions is significant, and there are so many stable
> > > > kernels no it's just a waste of developer time to try to support
> > > > them. And in this case, the process simply wasn't executed and an
> > > > unintended regression that is >this close< to causing filesystem
> > > > corruption slipped through to the stable series.....
> > > 
> > > Ok, how about I never apply any xfs stable kernel patch, unless you send
> > > it to stable@...r.kernel.org?
> > 
> > Dave has made it clear that he doesn't want to be involved in maintaining
> > -stable kernels.  However, my team at SGI is interested in maintaining -stable
> > kernels.  We're not going to use the fact that there is a risk of regression as
> > an excuse to starve -stable of relevant fixes, just as we do not use it as an
> > excuse to starve the upstream branch of feature content.
> > 
> > > I have that rule in place for some other subsystems that don't want me
> > > applying stuff that they aren't aware of, and have no problem doing the same
> > > thing here.
> > > 
> > > Just let me know.
> > 
> > Here are the usual suspects:
> > 
> > Ben Myers <bpm@....com>
> > Mark Tinguely <tinguely@....com>
> > Dave Chinner <dchinner@...hat.com>
> > Eric Sandeen <sandeen@...hat.com>
> 
> Ok, but for this specific patch, did I do something wrong in taking it?

No, not in my opinion.  I was on the CC and had the opportunity to NACK it and
failed to do so.  So today I'm eating crow.

> I guess I'll just let you send me xfs patches, is that ok with everyone
> else?

For my part, I trust any of the gentlemen I listed above to do adequate testing
before proposing xfs patches for -stable.  There are more xfs geeks who fit
into that category (and I prefer not to exclude), but that's my suggestion for
now.

> Dave can just ignore them, especially given redhat's horrible
> email system :)

Lol.  I think RH will be purchasing a smart phone soon.

Thanks,
	Ben
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