Re: [PATCH v4 5/8] NFSD check stateids against copy stateids

["J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@redhat.com>]

On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 05:10:01PM -0400, Olga Kornievskaia wrote:
> I'm having difficulty with this patch because there is no good way to
> know when the copy_notify stateid can be freed. What I can propose is
> to have the linux client send a FREE_STATEID with the copy_notify
> stateid and use that as the trigger to free the state. In that case,
> I'll keep a reference on the parent until the FREE_STATEID is
> received.
> 
> This is not in the spec (though seems like a good idea to tell the
> source server it's ok to clean up) so other implementations might not
> choose this approach so we'll have problems with stateids sticking
> around.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7862#page-71

	"If the cnr_lease_time expires while the destination server is
	still reading the source file, the destination server is allowed
	to finish reading the file.  If the cnr_lease_time expires
	before the destination server uses READ or READ_PLUS to begin
	the transfer, the source server can use NFS4ERR_PARTNER_NO_AUTH
	to inform the destination server that the cnr_lease_time has
	expired."

The spec doesn't really define what "is allowed to finish reading the
file" means, but I think the source server should decide somehow whether
the target's done.  And "hasn't sent a read in cnr_lease_time" seems
like a pretty good conservative definition that would be easy to
enforce.  Worst case, if the network goes down for a couple minutes and
the target tries to pick up a copy where it left off, it'll get
PARTNER_NO_AUTH.  I assume that results in the same error being returned
the client, at which point the client knows that the copy_notify stateid
may have installed and can do what it chooses to recover (like send a
new copy_notify).

The FREE_STATEID might also be a good idea, but I guess we can't count
on it.

Maybe the spec could use some errata to clarify that FREE_STATEID is
allowed on copy_notify stateids, that clients should send it when
they're done, and that servers are allowed to expire copy_notify
stateid's even after their first use.

--b.