Re: [PATCH 10/10] nfsd: clients don't need to break their own delegations

[Trond Myklebust <trondmy@primarydata.com>]

On Tue, 2018-03-20 at 10:49 -0400, J. Bruce Fields wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 01:46:20PM +0000, Trond Myklebust wrote:
> > On Tue, 2018-03-20 at 13:35 +0000, David Howells wrote:
> > > J. Bruce Fields <bfields@redhat.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > @@ -139,6 +139,9 @@ struct cred {
> > > >  	struct key	*thread_keyring; /* keyring private
> > > > to
> > > > this thread */
> > > >  	struct key	*request_key_auth; /* assumed
> > > > request_key authority */
> > > >  #endif
> > > > +#ifdef CONFIG_FILE_LOCKING
> > > > +	void		*lease_breaker; /* identify NFS
> > > > client
> > > > breaking a delegation */
> > > > +#endif
> > > >  #ifdef CONFIG_SECURITY
> > > >  	void		*security;	/* subjective
> > > > LSM
> > > > security */
> > > >  #endif
> > > 
> > > Sorry, but ewww.
> > > 
> > > Two reasons for that comment:
> > > 
> > >  (1) The cred struct may get retained long past where you expect
> > > if
> > > it gets
> > >      attached to another process or a file descriptor.
> > > 
> > >  (2) The ->lease_breaker pointer needs lifetime management in
> > > cred.c.  It will
> > >      potentially get copied around and may need cleaning up.
> > > 
> > > Can you stick your breaker identity in a key struct as Jeff
> > > suggested?
> > > 
> > 
> > Bruce,
> > 
> > Do you really need to do more than just identify that this is a
> > knfsd
> > thread vs not a knfsd thread? I'm assuming that a knfsd thread will
> > usually be in a position to recall delegations before it even
> > initiates
> > an operation on the inode in question, won't it?
> 
> I think it could.  I'm reluctant:
> 
> 	- Once we support write delegations, I think we end up having
> to
> 	  do that before basically every operation on a inode.
> 	- I'd like this to make it easy for someone to extend
> delegation
> 	  support to userspace eventually too.  I'm not sure exactly
> how
> 	  we'd identify self-conflicts in that case (struct files?),
> but
> 	  anyway I'd rather this wasn't too nfsd-specific.

That's my point. A userspace application is going to have to do
something like this anyway. It cannot install hooks in the kernel to
perform elaborate tests, so it is going to have to rely on something
like the struct file_lock 'fl_nspid' field in order to determine
whether or not to apply a lease break.

i.e.: the userspace rule should be to break the lease if and only if it
is not owned by my process.

> That said, I'm still curious:
> 
> > IOW: what if you were to modify the lease code to allow knfsd
> > threads
> > to return a "please ignore me, and proceed with the operation that
> > triggered the lease break" reply, and then handle conflicts between
> > NFS
> > clients outside the lease callback code altogether?
> 
> So if you're a random bit of code, how would you recommend testing
> whether you're running in a knfsd thread?

Right now, the knfsd threads are regular kernel threads, with each
thread appearing to userspace to be a process in its own right.
Is there any reason why we could not assign them a group pid that would
allow the fl_nspid mechanism to work (i.e. set task->group_leader)?


-- 
Trond Myklebust
Linux NFS client maintainer, PrimaryData
trond.myklebust@primarydata.com