Patch "ext4: fix deadlock during page writeback" has been added to the 4.6-stable tree

This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled

ext4: fix deadlock during page writeback

to the 4.6-stable tree which can be found at:
http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary

The filename of the patch is:
ext4-fix-deadlock-during-page-writeback.patch
and it can be found in the queue-4.6 subdirectory.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <[email protected]> know about it.

From: Jan Kara <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 10:14:01 -0400
Subject: ext4: fix deadlock during page writeback

From: Jan Kara <[email protected]>

commit 646caa9c8e196880b41cd3e3d33a2ebc752bdb85 upstream.

Commit 06bd3c36a733 (ext4: fix data exposure after a crash) uncovered a deadlock in ext4_writepages() which was previously much harder to hit. After this commit xfstest generic/130 reproduces the deadlock on small filesystems.

The problem happens when ext4_do_update_inode() sets LARGE_FILE feature and marks current inode handle as synchronous. That subsequently results in ext4_journal_stop() called from ext4_writepages() to block waiting for transaction commit while still holding page locks, reference to io_end, and some prepared bio in mpd structure each of which can possibly block transaction commit from completing and thus results in deadlock.

Fix the problem by releasing page locks, io_end reference, and submitting prepared bio before calling ext4_journal_stop().

[ Changed to defer the call to ext4_journal_stop() only if the handle
is synchronous. --tytso ]

---
 fs/ext4/inode.c |   29 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
 1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

@@ -2741,13 +2741,36 @@ retry:
 				done = true;
 			}
 		}
-		ext4_journal_stop(handle);
+		/*
+		 * Caution: If the handle is synchronous,
+		 * ext4_journal_stop() can wait for transaction commit
+		 * to finish which may depend on writeback of pages to
+		 * complete or on page lock to be released.  In that
+		 * case, we have to wait until after after we have
+		 * submitted all the IO, released page locks we hold,
+		 * and dropped io_end reference (for extent conversion
+		 * to be able to complete) before stopping the handle.
+		 */
+		if (!ext4_handle_valid(handle) || handle->h_sync == 0) {
+			ext4_journal_stop(handle);
+			handle = NULL;
+		}
 		/* Submit prepared bio */
 		ext4_io_submit(&mpd.io_submit);
 		/* Unlock pages we didn't use */
 		mpage_release_unused_pages(&mpd, give_up_on_write);
-		/* Drop our io_end reference we got from init */
-		ext4_put_io_end(mpd.io_submit.io_end);
+		/*
+		 * Drop our io_end reference we got from init. We have
+		 * to be careful and use deferred io_end finishing if
+		 * we are still holding the transaction as we can
+		 * release the last reference to io_end which may end
+		 * up doing unwritten extent conversion.
+		 */
+		if (handle) {
+			ext4_put_io_end_defer(mpd.io_submit.io_end);
+			ext4_journal_stop(handle);
+		} else
+			ext4_put_io_end(mpd.io_submit.io_end);
 
 		if (ret == -ENOSPC && sbi->s_journal) {
 			/*

Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from [email protected] are

queue-4.6/ext4-fix-deadlock-during-page-writeback.patch queue-4.6/ext4-short-cut-orphan-cleanup-on-error.patch queue-4.6/udf-prevent-stack-overflow-on-corrupted-filesystem-mount.patch queue-4.6/ext4-don-t-call-ext4_should_journal_data-on-the-journal-inode.patch