diff options
author | Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> | 2013-07-20 03:13:55 +0400 |
---|---|---|
committer | Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> | 2013-07-20 04:58:58 +0400 |
commit | acfec9a5a892f98461f52ed5770de99a3e571ae2 (patch) | |
tree | fa9b1cc174ce4214689719aee18285c82ce9d623 /security | |
parent | ba57ea64cb1820deb37637de0fdb107f0dc90089 (diff) | |
download | linux-next-acfec9a5a892f98461f52ed5770de99a3e571ae2.tar.gz |
livelock avoidance in sget()
Eric Sandeen has found a nasty livelock in sget() - take a mount(2) about
to fail. The superblock is on ->fs_supers, ->s_umount is held exclusive,
->s_active is 1. Along comes two more processes, trying to mount the same
thing; sget() in each is picking that superblock, bumping ->s_count and
trying to grab ->s_umount. ->s_active is 3 now. Original mount(2)
finally gets to deactivate_locked_super() on failure; ->s_active is 2,
superblock is still ->fs_supers because shutdown will *not* happen until
->s_active hits 0. ->s_umount is dropped and now we have two processes
chasing each other:
s_active = 2, A acquired ->s_umount, B blocked
A sees that the damn thing is stillborn, does deactivate_locked_super()
s_active = 1, A drops ->s_umount, B gets it
A restarts the search and finds the same superblock. And bumps it ->s_active.
s_active = 2, B holds ->s_umount, A blocked on trying to get it
... and we are in the earlier situation with A and B switched places.
The root cause, of course, is that ->s_active should not grow until we'd
got MS_BORN. Then failing ->mount() will have deactivate_locked_super()
shut the damn thing down. Fortunately, it's easy to do - the key point
is that grab_super() is called only for superblocks currently on ->fs_supers,
so it can bump ->s_count and grab ->s_umount first, then check MS_BORN and
bump ->s_active; we must never increment ->s_count for superblocks past
->kill_sb(), but grab_super() is never called for those.
The bug is pretty old; we would've caught it by now, if not for accidental
exclusion between sget() for block filesystems; the things like cgroup or
e.g. mtd-based filesystems don't have anything of that sort, so they get
bitten. The right way to deal with that is obviously to fix sget()...
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Diffstat (limited to 'security')
0 files changed, 0 insertions, 0 deletions