linux-kernel - [patch] mm, writeback: prevent race when calculating dirty limits

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Date:	Wed, 16 Jul 2014 17:36:49 -0700 (PDT)
From:	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>
To:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
cc:	Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
	Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.cz>, Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>,
	stable@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-mm@...ck.org
Subject: [patch] mm, writeback: prevent race when calculating dirty limits

Setting vm_dirty_bytes and dirty_background_bytes is not protected by any 
serialization.

Therefore, it's possible for either variable to change value after the 
test in global_dirty_limits() to determine whether available_memory needs 
to be initialized or not.

Always ensure that available_memory is properly initialized.

Cc: stable@...r.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>
---
 mm/page-writeback.c | 5 +----
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/page-writeback.c b/mm/page-writeback.c
--- a/mm/page-writeback.c
+++ b/mm/page-writeback.c
@@ -261,14 +261,11 @@ static unsigned long global_dirtyable_memory(void)
  */
 void global_dirty_limits(unsigned long *pbackground, unsigned long *pdirty)
 {
+	const unsigned long available_memory = global_dirtyable_memory();
 	unsigned long background;
 	unsigned long dirty;
-	unsigned long uninitialized_var(available_memory);
 	struct task_struct *tsk;
 
-	if (!vm_dirty_bytes || !dirty_background_bytes)
-		available_memory = global_dirtyable_memory();
-
 	if (vm_dirty_bytes)
 		dirty = DIV_ROUND_UP(vm_dirty_bytes, PAGE_SIZE);
 	else
--
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