Re: [PATCH 2/7] mm: Protect operations adding pages to page cache with i_mapping_lock

[Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>]

On Wed 14-04-21 10:01:13, Dave Chinner wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 01:28:46PM +0200, Jan Kara wrote:
> >   *
> >   *  ->mmap_lock
> >   *    ->i_mmap_rwsem
> > @@ -85,7 +86,8 @@
> >   *        ->i_pages lock	(arch-dependent flush_dcache_mmap_lock)
> >   *
> >   *  ->mmap_lock
> > - *    ->lock_page		(access_process_vm)
> > + *    ->i_mapping_sem		(filemap_fault)
> > + *      ->lock_page		(filemap_fault, access_process_vm)
> >   *
> >   *  ->i_rwsem			(generic_perform_write)
> >   *    ->mmap_lock		(fault_in_pages_readable->do_page_fault)
> > @@ -2276,16 +2278,28 @@ static int filemap_update_page(struct kiocb *iocb,
> >  {
> >  	int error;
> >  
> > +	if (iocb->ki_flags & IOCB_NOWAIT) {
> > +		if (!down_read_trylock(&mapping->host->i_mapping_sem))
> > +			return -EAGAIN;
> > +	} else {
> > +		down_read(&mapping->host->i_mapping_sem);
> > +	}
> 
> We really need a lock primitive for this. The number of times this
> exact lock pattern is being replicated all through the IO path is
> getting out of hand.
> 
> static inline bool
> down_read_try_or_lock(struct rwsem *sem, bool try)
> {
> 	if (try) {
> 		if (!down_read_trylock(sem))
> 			return false;
> 	} else {
> 		down_read(&mapping->host->i_mapping_sem);
> 	}
> 	return true;
> }
> 
> and the callers become:
> 
> 	if (!down_read_try_or_lock(sem, (iocb->ki_flags & IOCB_NOWAIT)))
> 		return -EAGAIN;
> 
> We can do the same with mutex_try_or_lock(), down_try_or_lock(), etc
> and we don't need to rely on cargo cult knowledge to propagate this
> pattern anymore. Because I'm betting relatively few people actually
> know why the code is written this way because the only place it is
> documented is in an XFS commit message....
> 
> Doing this is a separate cleanup, though, and not something that
> needs to be done in this patchset.

Yep, good idea but let's do it in a separate patch set.

> > index c5b0457415be..ac5bb50b3a4c 100644
> > --- a/mm/readahead.c
> > +++ b/mm/readahead.c
> > @@ -192,6 +192,7 @@ void page_cache_ra_unbounded(struct readahead_control *ractl,
> >  	 */
> >  	unsigned int nofs = memalloc_nofs_save();
> >  
> > +	down_read(&mapping->host->i_mapping_sem);
> >  	/*
> >  	 * Preallocate as many pages as we will need.
> >  	 */
> 
> I can't say I'm a great fan of having the mapping reach back up to
> the host to lock the host. THis seems the wrong way around to me
> given that most of the locking in the IO path is in "host locks
> mapping" and "mapping locks internal mapping structures" order...
> 
> I also come back to the naming confusion here, in that when we look
> at this in long hand from the inode perspective, this chain actually
> looks like:
> 
> 	lock(inode->i_mapping->inode->i_mapping_sem)
> 
> i.e. the mapping is reaching back up outside it's scope to lock
> itself against other inode->i_mapping operations. Smells of layering
> violations to me.
> 
> So, next question: should this truncate semanphore actually be part
> of the address space, not the inode? This patch is actually moving
> the page fault serialisation from the inode into the address space
> operations when page faults and page cache operations are done, so
> maybe the lock should also make that move? That would help clear up
> the naming problem, because now we can name it based around what it
> serialises in the address space, not the address space as a whole...

I think that moving the lock to address_space makes some sence although the
lock actually protects consistency of inode->i_mapping->i_pages with
whatever the filesystem has in its file_offset->disk_block mapping
structures (which are generally associated with the inode). So it is not
only about inode->i_mapping contents but I agree that struct address_space
is probably a bit more logical place than struct inode.

Regarding the name: How about i_pages_rwsem? The lock is protecting
invalidation of mapping->i_pages and needs to be held until insertion of
pages into i_pages is safe again...

								Honza
-- 
Jan Kara <jack@suse.com>
SUSE Labs, CR