Re: mnt_want_write_file() has problem?

From: Dave Hansen
Date: Mon Aug 03 2009 - 14:32:01 EST


On Mon, 2009-08-03 at 06:36 +0900, OGAWA Hirofumi wrote:
> While I'm reading some code, I suspected that mnt_want_write_file() may
> have wrong assumption. I think mnt_want_write_file() is assuming it
> increments ->mnt_writers if (file->f_mode & FMODE_WRITE). But, if it's
> special_file(), it is false?
>
> Sorry, I'm still not checking all of those though. E.g. I'm thinking the
> below.
>
> static inline int __get_file_write_access(struct inode *inode,
> struct vfsmount *mnt)
> {
> [...]
> if (!special_file(inode->i_mode)) {
> /*
> * Balanced in __fput()
> */
> error = mnt_want_write(mnt);
> if (error)
> put_write_access(inode);
> }
> return error;
> }

In practice I don't think this is an issue. We were never supposed to
do mnt_want_write(mnt) for any 'struct file' that was a special_file(),
specifically because of what you mention.

Nick's use of mnt_want_write_file() was a 1:1 drop-in for
mnt_want_write(). So, if all is well in the world, there should not be
any call sites where mnt_want_write_file() gets called on a
special_file().

Future users of mnt_want_file_write() may not notice this fact, though.
This is probably worth at least a note in the documentation or perhaps a
WARN_ON().

-- Dave

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/