Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752443AbaJ0IG6 (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Oct 2014 04:06:58 -0400 Received: from mail-qa0-f48.google.com ([209.85.216.48]:46275 "EHLO mail-qa0-f48.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752377AbaJ0IGz (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Oct 2014 04:06:55 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Originating-IP: [46.139.80.5] In-Reply-To: <20141025170609.GK7996@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> References: <20141023232539.GA4662@tucsk.piliscsaba.szeredi.hu> <20141024022055.GH7996@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> <20141024032422.GI7996@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> <20141025081845.GJ7996@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> <20141025170609.GK7996@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 09:06:54 +0100 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] overlay filesystem v25 From: Miklos Szeredi To: Al Viro Cc: Linus Torvalds , Linux-Fsdevel , Kernel Mailing List , linux-unionfs@vger.kernel.org, "Paul E. McKenney" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org [Paul McKenney added to CC] On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Al Viro wrote: > On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 11:53:52AM +0200, Miklos Szeredi wrote: > >> Yes, but it's not about race with copy-up (which the ovl_path_upper() >> protects against), but race of two fsync calls with each other. If >> there's no synchronization between them, then that od->upperfile does >> indeed count as lockless access, no matter that the assignment was >> done under lock. > > p = global; > if (!p) { // outside of lock > p = alloc(); > grab lock > if (!global) { > global = p; > } else { > destroy(p); > p = global; > } > drop lock > } > is a very common pattern, especially if you look for cases when lock is > a spinlock and allocation is blocking (in those cases you'll often see > destroy() part done after dropping the lock; that's where what I fucked up in > what I'd originally pushed. And it wasn't even needed - fput() under > ->i_mutex is OK...) Being a very common pattern does not automatically make it correct... My understanding of these issues is very limited, but it's not clear to me what will order initialization of members of p with the storing of p into global. E.g. we start out with global == NULL and p->foo == 0. CPU1: p->foo = 1 grab lock if (!global) global = p CPU1: p = global if (p) q = p->foo Is it guaranteed that the above sequence (as is, without any barriers or ACCESS_ONCE() other than the lock acquisition) will result in q == 1 if p != NULL? Thanks, Miklos -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/