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[Deadlock] is caused by a lock order reversal in vfs_lookup(), where
[some] process is trying to lock a directory vnode, that is the parent
directory of covered vnode) while holding an exclusive vnode lock on
covering vnode.
A simplified scenario:
root fs var fs
/ A / (/var) D
/var B /log (/var/log) E
vfs lock C vfs lock F
Within each file system, the lock order is clear: C->A->B and F->D->E
When traversing across mounts, the system can choose between two lock orders,
but everything must then follow that lock order:
L1: C->A->B
|
+->F->D->E
L2: F->D->E
|
+->C->A->B
The lookup() process for namei("/var") mixes those two lock orders:
VOP_LOOKUP() obtains B while A is held
vfs_busy() obtains a shared lock on F while A and B are held (follows L1,
violates L2)
vput() releases lock on B
VOP_UNLOCK() releases lock on A
VFS_ROOT() obtains lock on D while shared lock on F is held
vfs_unbusy() releases shared lock on F
vn_lock() obtains lock on A while D is held (violates L1, follows L2)
dounmount() follows L1 (B is locked while F is drained).
Without unmount activity, vfs_busy() will always succeed without blocking
and the deadlock isn't triggered (the system behaves as if L2 is followed).
With unmount, you can get 4 processes in a deadlock:
p1: holds D, want A (in lookup())
p2: holds shared lock on F, want D (in VFS_ROOT())
p3: holds B, want drain lock on F (in dounmount())
p4: holds A, want B (in VOP_LOOKUP())
You can have more than one instance of p2.
The reversal was introduced in revision 1.81 of src/sys/kern/vfs_lookup.c and
MFCed to revision 1.80.2.1, probably to avoid a cascade of vnode locks when nfs
servers are dead (VFS_ROOT() just hangs) spreading to the root fs root vnode.
- Tor Egge
To fix the LOR, ups@ noted that when crossing the mount point, ni_dvp
is actually not used by the callers of namei. Thus, placeholder deadfs
vnode vp_crossmp is introduced that is filled into ni_dvp.
Idea by: ups
Reviewed by: tegge, ups, jeff, rwatson (mac interaction)
Tested by: Peter Holm
MFC after: 2 weeks
79752b63e1