linux.git/Documentation/filesystems/Locking, branch v2.6.34

dquot: cleanup dquot initialize routine

2010-03-04T23:20:30+00:00

Get rid of the initialize dquot operation - it is now always called from
the filesystem and if a filesystem really needs it's own (which none
currently does) it can just call into it's own routine directly.

Rename the now static low-level dquot_initialize helper to __dquot_initialize
and vfs_dq_init to dquot_initialize to have a consistent namespace.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara

dquot: cleanup dquot drop routine

2010-03-04T23:20:30+00:00

Get rid of the drop dquot operation - it is now always called from
the filesystem and if a filesystem really needs it's own (which none
currently does) it can just call into it's own routine directly.

Rename the now static low-level dquot_drop helper to __dquot_drop
and vfs_dq_drop to dquot_drop to have a consistent namespace.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara

dquot: cleanup dquot transfer routine

2010-03-04T23:20:29+00:00

Get rid of the transfer dquot operation - it is now always called from
the filesystem and if a filesystem really needs it's own (which none
currently does) it can just call into it's own routine directly.

Rename the now static low-level dquot_transfer helper to __dquot_transfer
and vfs_dq_transfer to dquot_transfer to have a consistent namespace,
and make the new dquot_transfer return a normal negative errno value
which all callers expect.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara

dquot: cleanup inode allocation / freeing routines

2010-03-04T23:20:28+00:00

Get rid of the alloc_inode and free_inode dquot operations - they are
always called from the filesystem and if a filesystem really needs
their own (which none currently does) it can just call into it's
own routine directly.

Also get rid of the vfs_dq_alloc/vfs_dq_free wrappers and always
call the lowlevel dquot_alloc_inode / dqout_free_inode routines
directly, which now lose the number argument which is always 1.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara

dquot: cleanup space allocation / freeing routines

2010-03-04T23:20:28+00:00

Get rid of the alloc_space, free_space, reserve_space, claim_space and
release_rsv dquot operations - they are always called from the filesystem
and if a filesystem really needs their own (which none currently does)
it can just call into it's own routine directly.

Move shared logic into the common __dquot_alloc_space,
dquot_claim_space_nodirty and __dquot_free_space low-level methods,
and rationalize the wrappers around it to move as much as possible
code into the common block for CONFIG_QUOTA vs not.  Also rename
all these helpers to be named dquot_* instead of vfs_dq_*.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara

update Documentation/filesystems/Locking

2009-06-24T12:15:25+00:00

The rules for locking in many superblock operations has changed
significantly, so update the documentation for it.  Also correct some
older updates and ommissions.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Al Viro

No instance of ->bmap() needs BKL

2009-06-17T04:36:35+00:00

Signed-off-by: Al Viro

mm: close page_mkwrite races

2009-05-02T22:36:09+00:00

Change page_mkwrite to allow implementations to return with the page
locked, and also change it's callers (in page fault paths) to hold the
lock until the page is marked dirty.  This allows the filesystem to have
full control of page dirtying events coming from the VM.

Rather than simply hold the page locked over the page_mkwrite call, we
call page_mkwrite with the page unlocked and allow callers to return with
it locked, so filesystems can avoid LOR conditions with page lock.

The problem with the current scheme is this: a filesystem that wants to
associate some metadata with a page as long as the page is dirty, will
perform this manipulation in its ->page_mkwrite.  It currently then must
return with the page unlocked and may not hold any other locks (according
to existing page_mkwrite convention).

In this window, the VM could write out the page, clearing page-dirty.  The
filesystem has no good way to detect that a dirty pte is about to be
attached, so it will happily write out the page, at which point, the
filesystem may manipulate the metadata to reflect that the page is no
longer dirty.

It is not always possible to perform the required metadata manipulation in
->set_page_dirty, because that function cannot block or fail.  The
filesystem may need to allocate some data structure, for example.

And the VM cannot mark the pte dirty before page_mkwrite, because
page_mkwrite is allowed to fail, so we must not allow any window where the
page could be written to if page_mkwrite does fail.

This solution of holding the page locked over the 3 critical operations
(page_mkwrite, setting the pte dirty, and finally setting the page dirty)
closes out races nicely, preventing page cleaning for writeout being
initiated in that window.  This provides the filesystem with a strong
synchronisation against the VM here.

- Sage needs this race closed for ceph filesystem.
- Trond for NFS (http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12913).
- I need it for fsblock.
- I suspect other filesystems may need it too (eg. btrfs).
- I have converted buffer.c to the new locking. Even simple block allocation
  under dirty pages might be susceptible to i_size changing under partial page
  at the end of file (we also have a buffer.c-side problem here, but it cannot
  be fixed properly without this patch).
- Other filesystems (eg. NFS, maybe btrfs) will need to change their
  page_mkwrite functions themselves.

[ This also moves page_mkwrite another step closer to fault, which should
  eventually allow page_mkwrite to be moved into ->fault, and thus avoiding a
  filesystem calldown and page lock/unlock cycle in __do_fault. ]

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix derefs of NULL ->mapping]
Cc: Sage Weil 
Cc: Trond Myklebust 
Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin 
Cc: Valdis Kletnieks 
Cc: 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

mm: page_mkwrite change prototype to match fault

2009-04-01T15:59:14+00:00

Change the page_mkwrite prototype to take a struct vm_fault, and return
VM_FAULT_xxx flags.  There should be no functional change.

This makes it possible to return much more detailed error information to
the VM (and also can provide more information eg.  virtual_address to the
driver, which might be important in some special cases).

This is required for a subsequent fix.  And will also make it easier to
merge page_mkwrite() with fault() in future.

Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin 
Cc: Chris Mason 
Cc: Trond Myklebust 
Cc: Miklos Szeredi 
Cc: Steven Whitehouse 
Cc: Mark Fasheh 
Cc: Joel Becker 
Cc: Artem Bityutskiy 
Cc: Felix Blyakher 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

Move FASYNC bit handling to f_op->fasync()

2009-03-16T14:32:27+00:00

Removing the BKL from FASYNC handling ran into the challenge of keeping the
setting of the FASYNC bit in filp->f_flags atomic with regard to calls to
the underlying fasync() function.  Andi Kleen suggested moving the handling
of that bit into fasync(); this patch does exactly that.  As a result, we
have a couple of internal API changes: fasync() must now manage the FASYNC
bit, and it will be called without the BKL held.

As it happens, every fasync() implementation in the kernel with one
exception calls fasync_helper().  So, if we make fasync_helper() set the
FASYNC bit, we can avoid making any changes to the other fasync()
functions - as long as those functions, themselves, have proper locking.
Most fasync() implementations do nothing but call fasync_helper() - which
has its own lock - so they are easily verified as correct.  The BKL had
already been pushed down into the rest.

The networking code has its own version of fasync_helper(), so that code
has been augmented with explicit FASYNC bit handling.

Cc: Al Viro 
Cc: David Miller 
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig 
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet