Patch "btrfs: Fix memory barriers usage with device stats counters" has been added to the 4.15-stable tree

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

btrfs: Fix memory barriers usage with device stats counters

to the 4.15-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:
btrfs-fix-memory-barriers-usage-with-device-stats-counters.patch
and it can be found in the queue-4.15 subdirectory.

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

From: Nikolay Borisov <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 13:47:37 +0300
Subject: btrfs: Fix memory barriers usage with device stats counters

From: Nikolay Borisov <[email protected]>

commit 9deae9689231964972a94bb56a79b669f9d47ac1 upstream.

Commit addc3fa74e5b ("Btrfs: Fix the problem that the dirty flag of dev stats is cleared") reworked the way device stats changes are tracked. A new atomic dev_stats_ccnt counter was introduced which is incremented every time any of the device stats counters are changed. This serves as a flag whether there are any pending stats changes. However, this patch only partially implemented the correct memory barriers necessary:

- It only ordered the stores to the counters but not the reads e.g. btrfs_run_dev_stats
- It completely omitted any comments documenting the intended design and how the memory barriers pair with each-other

This patch provides the necessary comments as well as adds a missing smp_rmb in btrfs_run_dev_stats. Furthermore since dev_stats_cnt is only a snapshot at best there was no point in reading the counter twice - once in btrfs_dev_stats_dirty and then again when assigning stats_cnt. Just collapse both reads into 1.

---
 fs/btrfs/volumes.c |   18 ++++++++++++++++--
 fs/btrfs/volumes.h |   12 ++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 28 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

@@ -7093,10 +7093,24 @@ int btrfs_run_dev_stats(struct btrfs_tra
 
 	mutex_lock(&fs_devices->device_list_mutex);
 	list_for_each_entry(device, &fs_devices->devices, dev_list) {
-		if (!device->dev_stats_valid || !btrfs_dev_stats_dirty(device))
+		stats_cnt = atomic_read(&device->dev_stats_ccnt);
+		if (!device->dev_stats_valid || stats_cnt == 0)
 			continue;
 
-		stats_cnt = atomic_read(&device->dev_stats_ccnt);
+
+		/*
+		 * There is a LOAD-LOAD control dependency between the value of
+		 * dev_stats_ccnt and updating the on-disk values which requires
+		 * reading the in-memory counters. Such control dependencies
+		 * require explicit read memory barriers.
+		 *
+		 * This memory barriers pairs with smp_mb__before_atomic in
+		 * btrfs_dev_stat_inc/btrfs_dev_stat_set and with the full
+		 * barrier implied by atomic_xchg in
+		 * btrfs_dev_stats_read_and_reset
+		 */
+		smp_rmb();
+
 		ret = update_dev_stat_item(trans, fs_info, device);
 		if (!ret)
 			atomic_sub(stats_cnt, &device->dev_stats_ccnt);

@@ -498,6 +498,12 @@ static inline void btrfs_dev_stat_inc(st
 				      int index)
 {
 	atomic_inc(dev->dev_stat_values + index);
+	/*
+	 * This memory barrier orders stores updating statistics before stores
+	 * updating dev_stats_ccnt.
+	 *
+	 * It pairs with smp_rmb() in btrfs_run_dev_stats().
+	 */
 	smp_mb__before_atomic();
 	atomic_inc(&dev->dev_stats_ccnt);
 }

@@ -523,6 +529,12 @@ static inline void btrfs_dev_stat_set(st
 				      int index, unsigned long val)
 {
 	atomic_set(dev->dev_stat_values + index, val);
+	/*
+	 * This memory barrier orders stores updating statistics before stores
+	 * updating dev_stats_ccnt.
+	 *
+	 * It pairs with smp_rmb() in btrfs_run_dev_stats().
+	 */
 	smp_mb__before_atomic();
 	atomic_inc(&dev->dev_stats_ccnt);
 }

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

queue-4.15/btrfs-fix-memory-barriers-usage-with-device-stats-counters.patch queue-4.15/btrfs-fix-use-after-free-when-cleaning-up-fs_devs-with-a-single-stale-device.patch