linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/2] vfs: free vfsmount through rcu work from kern

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Date:   Fri, 18 Feb 2022 20:24:09 +0000
From:   Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>
To:     Rik van Riel <riel@...riel.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kernel-team@...com,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, paulmck@...nel.org,
        gscrivan@...hat.com, Eric Biederman <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
        Chris Mason <clm@...com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] vfs: free vfsmount through rcu work from kern_unmount

On Fri, Feb 18, 2022 at 07:43:43PM +0000, Al Viro wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 18, 2022 at 02:33:31PM -0500, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > On Fri, 2022-02-18 at 19:26 +0000, Al Viro wrote:
> > > On Fri, Feb 18, 2022 at 01:31:13PM -0500, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > > > After kern_unmount returns, callers can no longer access the
> > > > vfsmount structure. However, the vfsmount structure does need
> > > > to be kept around until the end of the RCU grace period, to
> > > > make sure other accesses have all gone away too.
> > > > 
> > > > This can be accomplished by either gating each kern_unmount
> > > > on synchronize_rcu (the comment in the code says it all), or
> > > > by deferring the freeing until the next grace period, where
> > > > it needs to be handled in a workqueue due to the locking in
> > > > mntput_no_expire().
> > > 
> > > NAK.  There's code that relies upon kern_unmount() being
> > > synchronous.  That's precisely the reason why MNT_INTERNAL
> > > is treated that way in mntput_no_expire().
> > 
> > Fair enough. Should I make a kern_unmount_rcu() version
> > that gets called just from mq_put_mnt()?
> 
> Umm...  I'm not sure you can afford having struct ipc_namespace
> freed and reused before the mqueue superblock gets at least to
> deactivate_locked_super().

BTW, that's a good demonstration of the problems with making those
beasts async.  struct mount is *not* accessed past kern_unmount(),
but the objects used by the superblock might very well be - in
this case they (struct ipc_namespace, pointed to by s->s_fs_data)
are freed by the caller after kern_unmount() returns.  And possibly
reused.  Now note that they are used as search keys by
mqueue_get_tree() and it becomes very fishy.

If you want to go that way, make it something like

void put_ipc_ns(struct ipc_namespace *ns)
{
        if (refcount_dec_and_lock(&ns->ns.count, &mq_lock)) {
		mq_clear_sbinfo(ns);
		spin_unlock(&mq_lock);
		kern_unmount_rcu(ns->mq_mnt);
	}
}

and give mqueue this for ->kill_sb():

static void mqueue_kill_super(struct super_block *sb)
{
	struct ipc_namespace *ns = sb->s_fs_info;
	kill_litter_super(sb);
	do the rest of free_ipc_ns();
}

One thing: kern_unmount_rcu() needs a very big warning about
the caution needed from its callers.  It's really not safe
for general use, and it will be a temptation for folks with
scalability problems like this one to just use it instead of
kern_unmount() and declare the problem solved.