[haiku-bugs] [Haiku] #9839: VFS: race condition between get_vnode() and new_vnode()/publish_vnode()
- From: "bonefish" <trac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 20:46:44 -0000
#9839: VFS: race condition between get_vnode() and new_vnode()/publish_vnode()
---------------------------+------------------------------
Reporter: bonefish | Owner: axeld
Type: bug | Status: new
Priority: normal | Milestone: R1
Component: System/Kernel | Version: R1/Development
Keywords: vfs | Blocked By:
Blocking: | Has a Patch: 0
Platform: All |
---------------------------+------------------------------
There is a race condition between VFS's `get_vnode()` (e.g. in response to
`_user_open_dir_entry_ref()`) and `new_vnode()` or `publish_vnode()`:
Since `get_vnode()` first calls `create_new_vnode_and_lock()` and
afterwards the FS's `get_vnode()` hook, there's a time window where the
vnode exists, but the respective node may not exist in the FS. If the node
doesn't actually exist and concurrently another thread creates a new file
or directory with that node ID, the `new_vnode()` or `publish_vnode()` it
calls will encounter the existing vnode and fail (the former will
`panic()`).
Not sure what a good solution would be. `new_vnode()`/`publish_vnode()`
could wait until the vnode becomes unbusy or disappears (a new marker flag
might be needed to distinguish the case from others where the node is
busy). That might be problematic, however, since the caller may hold a FS
specific lock, so that we'd risk a deadlock with the concurrent
`get_vnode()` hook which may also want to acquire that lock.
An IMO cleaner alternative would be to change the interface and semantics
of the `get_vnode()` hook. It would be required to create the vnode (via
`publish_vnode()` or a new interface). We would have to push the burden of
dealing with concurrent invocations to the hook, though.
It is not understood yet whether the described issue is related to #5262.
Here the panic reports the `vnode->node` to be NULL, while that isn't the
case in #5262.
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Ticket URL: <http://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/9839>
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