Messages in this thread | ![/](/images/icornerl.gif) | | Subject | Re: [PATCH 2/3] NFS: lock the readdir page while it is in use | From | Trond Myklebust <> | Date | Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:29:13 -0500 |
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On Tue, 2010-11-30 at 20:10 -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 7:47 PM, Trond Myklebust > <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com> wrote: > > Otherwise, the VM may end up removing it while we're reading from it. > > I don't think this is valid. > > Maybe it fixes a bug, but the commit description is misleading at > best. Since you have a reference count to the page, the page is not > going away. Locking may hide some other bug (due to serializing with > other code you care about), but it is _not_ about the "VM may end up > removing it". > > Even from a serialization angle, I think this patch is a bit suspect, > since readdir() will always be called under the inode semaphore, so I > think you'll always be serialized wrt other readdir users. Of course, > you may have invalidation events etc that are outside of readdir, so > ...
I'm not worried about other readdir calls invalidating the page. My concern is rather about the VM memory reclaimers ejecting the page from the page cache, and calling nfs_readdir_clear_array while we're referencing the page. This wasn't a problem with the previous readdir code, but it will be with the new incarnation because the actual filenames are stored outside the page itself. As far as I can see, the only way to protect against that is to lock the page, perform the usual tests and then release the page lock when we're done...
> Anyway if this patch matters, there's something else going on, and you > need to describe that.
No problem. I just wanted to get the patches out so that the people who are reporting regressions can start testing.
-- Trond Myklebust Linux NFS client maintainer
NetApp Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com www.netapp.com
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