linux-kernel - Re: hunt for 2.6.37 dm-crypt+ext4 corruption? (was: Re: dm-crypt barrier support is effective)

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:	Tue, 7 Dec 2010 14:48:58 -0600
From:	Jon Nelson <jnelson@...poni.net>
To:	Chris Mason <chris.mason@...cle.com>
Cc:	Mike Snitzer <snitzer@...hat.com>, Matt <jackdachef@...il.com>,
	Milan Broz <mbroz@...hat.com>,
	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	linux-btrfs <linux-btrfs@...r.kernel.org>,
	dm-devel <dm-devel@...hat.com>,
	Linux Kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	htd <htd@...cy-poultry.org>, htejun <htejun@...il.com>,
	linux-ext4 <linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: hunt for 2.6.37 dm-crypt+ext4 corruption? (was: Re: dm-crypt
 barrier support is effective)

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Chris Mason <chris.mason@...cle.com> wrote:
> Excerpts from Jon Nelson's message of 2010-12-07 15:25:47 -0500:
>> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Chris Mason <chris.mason@...cle.com> wrote:
>> > Excerpts from Jon Nelson's message of 2010-12-07 14:34:40 -0500:
>> >> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 12:52 PM, Chris Mason <chris.mason@...cle.com> wrote:
>> >> >> postgresql errors. Typically, header corruption but from the limited
>> >> >> visibility I've had into this via strace, what I see is zeroed pages
>> >> >> where there shouldn't be.
>> >> >
>> >> > This sounds a lot like a bug higher up than dm-crypt.  Zeros tend to
>> >> > come from some piece of code explicitly filling a page with zeros, and
>> >> > that often happens in the corner cases for O_DIRECT and a few other
>> >> > places in the filesystem.
>> >> >
>> >> > Have you tried triggering this with a regular block device?
>> >>
>> >> I just tried the whole set of tests, but with /dev/sdb directly (as
>> >> ext4) without any crypt-y bits.
>> >> It takes more iterations but out of 6 tests I had one failure: same
>> >> type of thing, 'invalid page header in block ....'.
>> >>
>> >> I can't guarantee that it is a full-page of zeroes, just what I saw
>> >> from the (limited) stracing I did.
>> >
>> > Fantastic. Now for our usual suspects:
>> >
>> > 1) Is postgres using O_DIRECT?  If yes, please turn it off
>>
>> According to strace, O_DIRECT didn't show up once during the test.
>>
>> > 2) Is postgres allocating sparse files?  If yes, please have it fully
>> > allocate the file instead.
>>
>> That's a tough one. I don't think postgresql does that, but I'm not an
>> expert here.
>
> Ok, please compare du -k and du -k --apparent-size for each of the
> files involved in the postgres run.

Because this is all done in a transaction (which fails), and because
the table is a TEMPORARY table, there *are* no files once the
transaction fails because postgresql unlinks them.

I can modify the test to use real tables and do things outside of a
transaction, however.

I was using fdatasync[1] and now I'm using sync. I'm on 9 iterations
without a failure (on ext4 - no crypt). Theoretically, these settings
only make a difference in the event of a crash. However, could they
make a difference in terms of the paths taken in the kernel?


[1] for wal_sync_method

-- 
Jon
--
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/