To: haveblue@us.ibm.com
CC: miklos@szeredi.hu, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, hch@infradead.org
In-reply-to: <1192126616.31114.63.camel@localhost> (message from Dave Hansen
	on Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:16:56 -0700)
Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH 2/7] get mount write in __dentry_open()
References: <20071010163439.0F8089F7@kernel>
	 <20071010163439.9DB7F219@kernel> <E1IfzeX-0007qp-00@dorka.pomaz.szeredi.hu> <1192126616.31114.63.camel@localhost>
Message-Id: <E1Ig2oN-0007yq-00@dorka.pomaz.szeredi.hu>
From: Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu>
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:31:07 +0200
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
Content-Length: 2206
Lines: 55

> On Thu, 2007-10-11 at 17:08 +0200, Miklos Szeredi wrote:
> > > diff -puN fs/namei.c~get-write-in-__dentry_open fs/namei.c
> > > --- lxc/fs/namei.c~get-write-in-__dentry_open	2007-10-03 14:44:52.000000000 -0700
> > > +++ lxc-dave/fs/namei.c	2007-10-04 18:02:48.000000000 -0700
> > > @@ -1621,14 +1621,6 @@ int may_open(struct nameidata *nd, int a
> > >  			return -EACCES;
> > >  
> > >  		flag &= ~O_TRUNC;
> > > -	} else if (flag & FMODE_WRITE) {
> > > -		/*
> > > -		 * effectively: !special_file()
> > > -		 * balanced by __fput()
> > > -		 */
> > > -		error = mnt_want_write(nd->mnt);
> > > -		if (error)
> > > -			return error;
> > >  	}
> > 
> > Maybe readonly should still be checked here, so that the order of
> > error checking doesn't change.  If racing with a read-only remount the
> > order is irrelevant anyway.  Something like this?
> > 
> > 	} else if (flag & FMODE_WRITE && __mnt_is_readonly(nd->mnt)) {
> > 		return -EROFS
> > 	}
> 
> I think that would be a bug if anything actually managed to trip that
> code.  all of the may_open() calls should have been covered by the
> __dentry_open() mnt writer.

AFACIS, __dentry_open() will normally be called later than may_open().
And we don't want it earlier, because ->open() may have side affects,
that could be unsafe if done before permission checking.

> > And they should be added around do_truncate() as well, since you
> > remove the protection from may_open().
> > 
> > This one introduces an interesting race between ro-remount and
> > open(O_TRUNC), where the truncate can succeed but the open fail with
> > EROFS.  Is that a problem?
> 
> You're right, this does introduce that race, and it is relatively hard
> to fix properly.  But, the 'return a filp' patch makes it easy to fix.
> I've put a temporary kludge in the updated version of this patch, and
> fixed it properly in that later patch.  

If you fix this properly, that should take care of the first problem
as well.

Miklos
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