From: Theodore Ts'o Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:34:19 +0000 (-0400) Subject: ext4: fix races in ext4_sync_parent() X-Git-Tag: v3.1-rc1~90^2~8 X-Git-Url: http://git.openpandora.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=d59729f4e794f814b25ccd2aebfbe606242c4544;p=pandora-kernel.git ext4: fix races in ext4_sync_parent() Fix problems if fsync() races against a rename of a parent directory as pointed out by Al Viro in his own inimitable way: >While we are at it, could somebody please explain what the hell is ext4 >doing in >static int ext4_sync_parent(struct inode *inode) >{ > struct writeback_control wbc; > struct dentry *dentry = NULL; > int ret = 0; > > while (inode && ext4_test_inode_state(inode, EXT4_STATE_NEWENTRY)) { > ext4_clear_inode_state(inode, EXT4_STATE_NEWENTRY); > dentry = list_entry(inode->i_dentry.next, > struct dentry, d_alias); > if (!dentry || !dentry->d_parent || !dentry->d_parent->d_inode) > break; > inode = dentry->d_parent->d_inode; > ret = sync_mapping_buffers(inode->i_mapping); > ... >Note that dentry obviously can't be NULL there. dentry->d_parent is never >NULL. And dentry->d_parent would better not be negative, for crying out >loud! What's worse, there's no guarantees that dentry->d_parent will >remain our parent over that sync_mapping_buffers() *and* that inode won't >just be freed under us (after rename() and memory pressure leading to >eviction of what used to be our dentry->d_parent)...... Reported-by: Al Viro Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" --- Reading git-diff-tree failed