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SubjectRe: 2.4.0-test10-pre3:Oops in mm/filemap.c:filemap_write_pa


On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Petr Vandrovec wrote:
> > I'll take a better look at the truncate case (I consider the invalidate
> > case closed). Do you have a simple test-program around?
>
> Well, I cannot say simple. As I was not able to reproduce it with only
> one task, code below:

Ok, without running this I can already guess at what's up.

One process does the "truncate()", and races with another process that
does a page-in.

The truncate code does

notify_change(ATTR_SIZE);

which will basically cause a "vmtruncate(inode, newsize)".

Just before this happened, the other process gets a page fault, and does a
page_cache_read(). Now, because we are low on memory (this is why it only
shows up when you're swapping), that read will take a while. During that
time, the vmtruncate() starts to execute, and sets inode->i_size to the
new value (that would cause us to no longer accept a page fault - but we
already got past that check in the faulting process). It will then
invalidate all the inode pages > i_size.

Now, the page faulting process comes back, and puts the page into the VM
space. Never mind that it has in the meantime gotten i_mapping = NULL due
to the other process doing the truncate.

Now, if I'm right, you should be able to add something like

if (!old_page->mapping)
printk("mapping went away from under us\n");

to just before the "return old_page()" case in the success path of
filemap_nopage() (mm/filemap.c), and you should see that printk() trigger
when the bug happens.

(There are other users too that are not synchronized wrt inode size
changes and could get an access to a page past the end of the file this
way - I just think that filemap_nopage is probably the one where this is
most easily seen).

The above is obviously not a bug-fix, it's just a validation of the
theory.

Al, any ideas? I have this feeling that the simplest fix is just to leave
the race open, and make truncate_complete_page() just leave such a "racy"
page in the page cache. It will still race, and the invalid page will
still exist, but the end result should be harmless.

Linus

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