linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] Fix up the NFS mmap code

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Sat, 9 Jan 2010 02:11:25 +0000
From:	Al Viro <viro@...IV.linux.org.uk>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@...app.com>,
	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-nfs@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] Fix up the NFS mmap code

On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 05:57:27PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sat, 9 Jan 2010, Al Viro wrote:
> > 
> > readdir() is certainly a red herring.
> 
> That's the one that lockdep reports, though. I still don't see why. Afaik, 
> the only place where NFS gets an inode is nfs_fhget(), and that seems to 
> do things correctly.

Well, sure - it steps on i_mutex-before-mmmap_sem first from ls somewhere and
records the ordering for posterity.  Then NFS steps into mmap() (on a
different inode) and gets conflicting ordering.

It would be a false positive if rules for NFS *really* had been different
and it could safely grab i_mutex on NFS inodes inside mmap_sem.  It can't.
The rules really are the same.  And readdir is just the earliest case of
kernel stepping on mmap_sem while holding *some* i_mutex.  write() is
another and there i_mutex can very well be the same as in case of mmap().

lockdep doesn't make a distinction (and really, how many paths reinforcing
the normal lock ordering would you record?), but if we'd given i_mutex of
NFS regular files a class of its own, we'd see a warning with nfs write
instead of readdir...
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/