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Message-ID: <ebd61bd3-1160-459f-b3b3-f186719fa5f3@siemens.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2026 09:19:23 +0100
From: Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@...mens.com>
To: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>, stable@...r.kernel.org,
 Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>, Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>
Cc: patches@...ts.linux.dev, stable@...nel.org, Zhang Yi
 <yi.zhang@...wei.com>, linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org,
 Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
 cip-dev <cip-dev@...ts.cip-project.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 6.12 242/262] ext4: fix checks for orphan inodes

On 13.10.25 16:46, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> 6.12-stable review patch.  If anyone has any objections, please let me know.
> 
> ------------------
> 
> From: Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
> 
> commit acf943e9768ec9d9be80982ca0ebc4bfd6b7631e upstream.
> 
> When orphan file feature is enabled, inode can be tracked as orphan
> either in the standard orphan list or in the orphan file. The first can
> be tested by checking ei->i_orphan list head, the second is recorded by
> EXT4_STATE_ORPHAN_FILE inode state flag. There are several places where
> we want to check whether inode is tracked as orphan and only some of
> them properly check for both possibilities. Luckily the consequences are
> mostly minor, the worst that can happen is that we track an inode as
> orphan although we don't need to and e2fsck then complains (resulting in
> occasional ext4/307 xfstest failures). Fix the problem by introducing a
> helper for checking whether an inode is tracked as orphan and use it in
> appropriate places.
> 
> Fixes: 4a79a98c7b19 ("ext4: Improve scalability of ext4 orphan file handling")
> Cc: stable@...nel.org
> Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
> Reviewed-by: Zhang Yi <yi.zhang@...wei.com>
> Message-ID: <20250925123038.20264-2-jack@...e.cz>
> Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>
> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
> ---
>  fs/ext4/ext4.h   |   10 ++++++++++
>  fs/ext4/file.c   |    2 +-
>  fs/ext4/inode.c  |    2 +-
>  fs/ext4/orphan.c |    6 +-----
>  fs/ext4/super.c  |    4 ++--
>  5 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
> 
> --- a/fs/ext4/ext4.h
> +++ b/fs/ext4/ext4.h
> @@ -1970,6 +1970,16 @@ static inline bool ext4_verity_in_progre
>  #define NEXT_ORPHAN(inode) EXT4_I(inode)->i_dtime
>  
>  /*
> + * Check whether the inode is tracked as orphan (either in orphan file or
> + * orphan list).
> + */
> +static inline bool ext4_inode_orphan_tracked(struct inode *inode)
> +{
> +	return ext4_test_inode_state(inode, EXT4_STATE_ORPHAN_FILE) ||
> +		!list_empty(&EXT4_I(inode)->i_orphan);
> +}
> +
> +/*
>   * Codes for operating systems
>   */
>  #define EXT4_OS_LINUX		0
> --- a/fs/ext4/file.c
> +++ b/fs/ext4/file.c
> @@ -354,7 +354,7 @@ static void ext4_inode_extension_cleanup
>  	 * to cleanup the orphan list in ext4_handle_inode_extension(). Do it
>  	 * now.
>  	 */
> -	if (!list_empty(&EXT4_I(inode)->i_orphan) && inode->i_nlink) {
> +	if (ext4_inode_orphan_tracked(inode) && inode->i_nlink) {
>  		handle_t *handle = ext4_journal_start(inode, EXT4_HT_INODE, 2);
>  
>  		if (IS_ERR(handle)) {
> --- a/fs/ext4/inode.c
> +++ b/fs/ext4/inode.c
> @@ -4330,7 +4330,7 @@ static int ext4_fill_raw_inode(struct in
>  		 * old inodes get re-used with the upper 16 bits of the
>  		 * uid/gid intact.
>  		 */
> -		if (ei->i_dtime && list_empty(&ei->i_orphan)) {
> +		if (ei->i_dtime && !ext4_inode_orphan_tracked(inode)) {
>  			raw_inode->i_uid_high = 0;
>  			raw_inode->i_gid_high = 0;
>  		} else {
> --- a/fs/ext4/orphan.c
> +++ b/fs/ext4/orphan.c
> @@ -109,11 +109,7 @@ int ext4_orphan_add(handle_t *handle, st
>  
>  	WARN_ON_ONCE(!(inode->i_state & (I_NEW | I_FREEING)) &&
>  		     !inode_is_locked(inode));
> -	/*
> -	 * Inode orphaned in orphan file or in orphan list?
> -	 */
> -	if (ext4_test_inode_state(inode, EXT4_STATE_ORPHAN_FILE) ||
> -	    !list_empty(&EXT4_I(inode)->i_orphan))
> +	if (ext4_inode_orphan_tracked(inode))
>  		return 0;
>  
>  	/*
> --- a/fs/ext4/super.c
> +++ b/fs/ext4/super.c
> @@ -1461,9 +1461,9 @@ static void ext4_free_in_core_inode(stru
>  
>  static void ext4_destroy_inode(struct inode *inode)
>  {
> -	if (!list_empty(&(EXT4_I(inode)->i_orphan))) {
> +	if (ext4_inode_orphan_tracked(inode)) {
>  		ext4_msg(inode->i_sb, KERN_ERR,
> -			 "Inode %lu (%p): orphan list check failed!",
> +			 "Inode %lu (%p): inode tracked as orphan!",
>  			 inode->i_ino, EXT4_I(inode));
>  		print_hex_dump(KERN_INFO, "", DUMP_PREFIX_ADDRESS, 16, 4,
>  				EXT4_I(inode), sizeof(struct ext4_inode_info),
> 
> 

Since this patch, I'm getting "inode tracked as orphan" warnings on ARM 
32-bit boards (not qemu, other archs not tested yet) when rebooting or 
shutting down. The affected partition is used as backing storage for an 
overlayfs (Debian image built from [1]). Still, systemd reports to have 
sucessfully unmounted the partition.

[  OK  ] Stopped systemd-journal-flush.serv…lush Journal to Persistent Storage.
[  OK  ] Unmounted run-lock.mount - Legacy Locks Directory /run/lock.
[  OK  ] Unmounted tmp.mount - Temporary Directory /tmp.
[  OK  ] Stopped target swap.target - Swaps.
         Unmounting var.mount - /var...
[  OK  ] Unmounted var.mount - /var.
[  OK  ] Stopped target local-fs-pre.target…Preparation for Local File Systems.
[  OK  ] Reached target umount.target - Unmount All Filesystems.
[  OK  ] Stopped systemd-remount-fs.service…mount Root and Kernel File Systems.
[  OK  ] Stopped systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev…Create Static Device Nodes in /dev.
[  OK  ] Stopped systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev…ic Device Nodes in /dev gracefully.
[  OK  ] Reached target shutdown.target - System Shutdown.
[  OK  ] Reached target final.target - Late Shutdown Services.
[  OK  ] Finished systemd-poweroff.service - System Power Off.
[  OK  ] Reached target poweroff.target - System Power Off.
[   52.948231] watchdog: watchdog0: watchdog did not stop!
[   53.440970] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p6): Inode 1 (b6b2dba9): inode tracked as orphan!
[   53.449709] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 412 Comm: (sd-umount) Not tainted 6.12.52-00240-gf50bece98c66 #12
[   53.449728] Hardware name: ti TI AM335x BeagleBone Black/TI AM335x BeagleBone Black, BIOS 2025.07 07/01/2025
[   53.449740] Call trace: 
[   53.449757]  unwind_backtrace from show_stack+0x18/0x1c
[   53.449807]  show_stack from dump_stack_lvl+0x68/0x74
[   53.449839]  dump_stack_lvl from ext4_destroy_inode+0x7c/0x10c
[   53.449870]  ext4_destroy_inode from destroy_inode+0x5c/0x70
[   53.449897]  destroy_inode from ext4_mb_release+0xc8/0x268
[   53.449936]  ext4_mb_release from ext4_put_super+0xe4/0x308
[   53.449962]  ext4_put_super from generic_shutdown_super+0x84/0x154
[   53.449996]  generic_shutdown_super from kill_block_super+0x18/0x34
[   53.450023]  kill_block_super from ext4_kill_sb+0x28/0x3c
[   53.450059]  ext4_kill_sb from deactivate_locked_super+0x58/0x90
[   53.450086]  deactivate_locked_super from cleanup_mnt+0x74/0xd0
[   53.450113]  cleanup_mnt from task_work_run+0x88/0xa0
[   53.450136]  task_work_run from do_work_pending+0x394/0x3cc
[   53.450156]  do_work_pending from slow_work_pending+0xc/0x24
[   53.450175] Exception stack(0xe093dfb0 to 0xe093dff8)
[   53.450190] dfa0:                                     00000000 00000009 00000000 00000000
[   53.450205] dfc0: be9e0b2c 004e2aa0 be9e0a20 00000034 be9e0a04 00000000 be9e0a20 00000000
[   53.450218] dfe0: 00000034 be9e095c b6ba609b b6b0f736 00030030 004e2ac0
[   53.730379] reboot: Power down

I'm not getting the warning with the same image but kernels 6.18+ or 
also 6.17.13 (the latter received this as backport as well). I do get 
the warning with 6.1.159 as well, and also when moving up to 6.12.63 
which received further ext4 backports. I didn't test 6.6 or 5.15 so far, 
but I suspect they are equally affected.

Before digging deep into this to me unfamiliar subsystem: Could we miss 
some backport(s) to 6.12 and below that 6.17+ have? Any suggestions to 
try out first?

Jan

[1] https://gitlab.com/cip-project/cip-core/isar-cip-core

-- 
Siemens AG, Foundational Technologies
Linux Expert Center

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