linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v6 5/7] kernfs: use i_lock to protect concurrent inode updates

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Date:   Fri, 11 Jun 2021 15:11:48 +0200
From:   Miklos Szeredi <miklos@...redi.hu>
To:     Ian Kent <raven@...maw.net>
Cc:     Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>, Eric Sandeen <sandeen@...deen.net>,
        Fox Chen <foxhlchen@...il.com>,
        Brice Goglin <brice.goglin@...il.com>,
        Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Rick Lindsley <ricklind@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>,
        Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@...hat.com>,
        "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
        Carlos Maiolino <cmaiolino@...hat.com>,
        linux-fsdevel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v6 5/7] kernfs: use i_lock to protect concurrent inode updates

On Wed, 9 Jun 2021 at 10:52, Ian Kent <raven@...maw.net> wrote:
>
> The inode operations .permission() and .getattr() use the kernfs node
> write lock but all that's needed is to keep the rb tree stable while
> updating the inode attributes as well as protecting the update itself
> against concurrent changes.
>
> And .permission() is called frequently during path walks and can cause
> quite a bit of contention between kernfs node operations and path
> walks when the number of concurrent walks is high.
>
> To change kernfs_iop_getattr() and kernfs_iop_permission() to take
> the rw sem read lock instead of the write lock an additional lock is
> needed to protect against multiple processes concurrently updating
> the inode attributes and link count in kernfs_refresh_inode().
>
> The inode i_lock seems like the sensible thing to use to protect these
> inode attribute updates so use it in kernfs_refresh_inode().
>
> The last hunk in the patch, applied to kernfs_fill_super(), is possibly
> not needed but taking the lock was present originally and I prefer to
> continue to take it so the rb tree is held stable during the call to
> kernfs_refresh_inode() made by kernfs_get_inode().
>
> Signed-off-by: Ian Kent <raven@...maw.net>

Reviewed-by: Miklos Szeredi <mszeredi@...hat.com>