Date:	Thu, 12 Jul 2012 09:43:14 -0400
From:	Jeff Moyer <jmoyer@...hat.com>
To:	Linux Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Jens Axboe <jaxboe@...ionio.com>
Cc:	Nick Piggin <npiggin@...nel.dk>,
	LKML List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	torsten.hilbrich@...unet.com, Richard Jones <rjones@...hat.com>,
	stable@...r.kernel.org, Marcos Mello <marcosfrm@...il.com>
Subject: [patch] block: fix infinite loop in __getblk_slow

Hi, Linus,

Jens is still on vacation, and this is a pretty important patch to get
merged.  Would you mind taking a look?

This commit:

commit 080399aaaf3531f5b8761ec0ac30ff98891e8686
Author: Jeff Moyer <jmoyer@...hat.com>
Date:   Fri May 11 16:34:10 2012 +0200

    block: don't mark buffers beyond end of disk as mapped

exposed a bug in __getblk_slow that causes mount to hang as it loops
infinitely waiting for a buffer that lies beyond the end of the disk to
become uptodate.  The problem was initially reported by Torsten Hilbrich
here: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/6/18/54, and also reported
independently here:
http://www.sysresccd.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4511, and then
Richard W.M. Jones and Marcos Mello noted a few separate bugzillas also
associated with the same issue.

The main problem is here, in __getblk_slow:

        for (;;) {
                struct buffer_head * bh;
                int ret;

                bh = __find_get_block(bdev, block, size);
                if (bh)
                        return bh;

                ret = grow_buffers(bdev, block, size);
                if (ret < 0)
                        return NULL;
                if (ret == 0)
                        free_more_memory();
        }

__find_get_block does not find the block, since it will not be marked as
mapped, and so grow_buffers is called to fill in the buffers for the
associated page.  I believe the for (;;) loop is there primarily to
retry in the case of memory pressure keeping grow_buffers from
succeeding.  However, we also continue to loop for other cases, like the
block lying beond the end of the disk.  So, the fix I came up with is to
only loop when grow_buffers fails due to memory allocation issues
(return value of 0).

The attached patch was tested by myself, Torsten, and Rich, and was
found to resolve the problem in call cases.

Comments, as always, are appreciated.

Signed-off-by: Jeff Moyer <jmoyer@...hat.com>
Reported-and-Tested-by: Torsten Hilbrich <torsten.hilbrich@...unet.com>
Tested-by: Richard W.M. Jones <rjones@...hat.com>
Cc: Stable <stable@...r.kernel.org>

--
Stable Notes: this patch requires backport to 3.0, 3.2 and 3.3.

diff --git a/fs/buffer.c b/fs/buffer.c
index 838a9cf..c7062c8 100644
--- a/fs/buffer.c
+++ b/fs/buffer.c
@@ -1036,6 +1036,9 @@ grow_buffers(struct block_device *bdev, sector_t block, int size)
 static struct buffer_head *
 __getblk_slow(struct block_device *bdev, sector_t block, int size)
 {
+	int ret;
+	struct buffer_head *bh;
+
 	/* Size must be multiple of hard sectorsize */
 	if (unlikely(size & (bdev_logical_block_size(bdev)-1) ||
 			(size < 512 || size > PAGE_SIZE))) {
@@ -1048,20 +1051,21 @@ __getblk_slow(struct block_device *bdev, sector_t block, int size)
 		return NULL;
 	}
 
-	for (;;) {
-		struct buffer_head * bh;
-		int ret;
+retry:
+	bh = __find_get_block(bdev, block, size);
+	if (bh)
+		return bh;
 
+	ret = grow_buffers(bdev, block, size);
+	if (ret == 0) {
+		free_more_memory();
+		goto retry;
+	} else if (ret > 0) {
 		bh = __find_get_block(bdev, block, size);
 		if (bh)
 			return bh;
-
-		ret = grow_buffers(bdev, block, size);
-		if (ret < 0)
-			return NULL;
-		if (ret == 0)
-			free_more_memory();
 	}
+	return NULL;
 }
 
 /*
--
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