extended attributes, the kernel can panic with either "ffs_truncate3"
or with "softdep_deallocate_dependencies: dangling deps".
The problem arises because the flushbuflist() function which is
called to clear out buffers is passed either the V_NORMAL flag to
indicate that it should flush buffer associated with the contents
of the file or the V_ALT flag to indicate that it should flush the
buffers associated with the extended attribute data. The buffers
containing the extended attribute data are identified by having
their BX_ALTDATA flag set in the buffer's b_xflags field. The
BX_ALTDATA flag is set on the buffer when the extended attribute
block is first allocated or when its contents are read in from the
disk.
On a busy system, a buffer may be reused for another purpose, but
the contents of the block that it contained continues to be held
in the main page cache. Each physical page is identified as holding
the contents of a logical block within a specified file (identified
by a vnode). When a request is made to read a file, the kernel first
looks for the block in the existing buffers. If it is not found
there, it checks the page cache to see if it is still there. If
it is found in the page cache, then it is remapped into a new
buffer thus avoiding the need to read it in from the disk.
The bug is that when a buffer request made for an extended attribute
is fulfilled by reconstituting a buffer from the page cache rather
than reading it in from disk, the BX_ALTDATA flag was not being
set. Thus the flushbuflist() function would never clear it out and
the "ffs_truncate3" panic would occur because the vnode being cleared
still had buffers on its clean-buffer list. If the extended attribute
was being updated, it is first read, then updated, and finally
written. If the read is fulfilled by reconstituting the buffer
from the page cache the BX_ALTDATA flag was not set and thus the
dirty buffer would never be flushed by flushbuflist(). Eventually
the buffer would be recycled. Since it was never written it would
have an unfinished dependency which would trigger the
"softdep_deallocate_dependencies: dangling deps" panic.
The fix is to ensure that the BX_ALTDATA flag is set when a buffer
has been reconstituted from the page cache.
PR: 230962
Reported by: 2t8mr7kx9f@protonmail.com
Reviewed by: kib
Tested by: Peter Holm
MFC after: 1 week
Sponsored by: Netflix
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