115 lines
		
	
	
		
			5.0 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Plaintext
		
	
	
	
	
	
			
		
		
	
	
			115 lines
		
	
	
		
			5.0 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Plaintext
		
	
	
	
	
	
| 	Locking scheme used for directory operations is based on two
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| kinds of locks - per-inode (->i_mutex) and per-filesystem
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| (->s_vfs_rename_mutex).
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| 
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| 	For our purposes all operations fall in 5 classes:
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| 
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| 1) read access.  Locking rules: caller locks directory we are accessing.
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| 
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| 2) object creation.  Locking rules: same as above.
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| 
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| 3) object removal.  Locking rules: caller locks parent, finds victim,
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| locks victim and calls the method.
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| 
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| 4) rename() that is _not_ cross-directory.  Locking rules: caller locks
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| the parent, finds source and target, if target already exists - locks it
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| and then calls the method.
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| 
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| 5) link creation.  Locking rules:
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| 	* lock parent
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| 	* check that source is not a directory
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| 	* lock source
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| 	* call the method.
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| 
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| 6) cross-directory rename.  The trickiest in the whole bunch.  Locking
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| rules:
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| 	* lock the filesystem
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| 	* lock parents in "ancestors first" order.
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| 	* find source and target.
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| 	* if old parent is equal to or is a descendent of target
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| 		fail with -ENOTEMPTY
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| 	* if new parent is equal to or is a descendent of source
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| 		fail with -ELOOP
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| 	* if target exists - lock it.
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| 	* call the method.
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| 
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| 
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| The rules above obviously guarantee that all directories that are going to be
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| read, modified or removed by method will be locked by caller.
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| 
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| 
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| If no directory is its own ancestor, the scheme above is deadlock-free.
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| Proof:
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| 
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| 	First of all, at any moment we have a partial ordering of the
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| objects - A < B iff A is an ancestor of B.
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| 
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| 	That ordering can change.  However, the following is true:
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| 
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| (1) if object removal or non-cross-directory rename holds lock on A and
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|     attempts to acquire lock on B, A will remain the parent of B until we
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|     acquire the lock on B.  (Proof: only cross-directory rename can change
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|     the parent of object and it would have to lock the parent).
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| 
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| (2) if cross-directory rename holds the lock on filesystem, order will not
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|     change until rename acquires all locks.  (Proof: other cross-directory
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|     renames will be blocked on filesystem lock and we don't start changing
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|     the order until we had acquired all locks).
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| 
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| (3) any operation holds at most one lock on non-directory object and
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|     that lock is acquired after all other locks.  (Proof: see descriptions
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|     of operations).
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| 
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| 	Now consider the minimal deadlock.  Each process is blocked on
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| attempt to acquire some lock and already holds at least one lock.  Let's
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| consider the set of contended locks.  First of all, filesystem lock is
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| not contended, since any process blocked on it is not holding any locks.
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| Thus all processes are blocked on ->i_mutex.
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| 
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| 	Non-directory objects are not contended due to (3).  Thus link
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| creation can't be a part of deadlock - it can't be blocked on source
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| and it means that it doesn't hold any locks.
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| 
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| 	Any contended object is either held by cross-directory rename or
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| has a child that is also contended.  Indeed, suppose that it is held by
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| operation other than cross-directory rename.  Then the lock this operation
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| is blocked on belongs to child of that object due to (1).
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| 
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| 	It means that one of the operations is cross-directory rename.
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| Otherwise the set of contended objects would be infinite - each of them
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| would have a contended child and we had assumed that no object is its
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| own descendent.  Moreover, there is exactly one cross-directory rename
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| (see above).
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| 
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| 	Consider the object blocking the cross-directory rename.  One
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| of its descendents is locked by cross-directory rename (otherwise we
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| would again have an infinite set of contended objects).  But that
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| means that cross-directory rename is taking locks out of order.  Due
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| to (2) the order hadn't changed since we had acquired filesystem lock.
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| But locking rules for cross-directory rename guarantee that we do not
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| try to acquire lock on descendent before the lock on ancestor.
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| Contradiction.  I.e.  deadlock is impossible.  Q.E.D.
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| 
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| 
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| 	These operations are guaranteed to avoid loop creation.  Indeed,
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| the only operation that could introduce loops is cross-directory rename.
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| Since the only new (parent, child) pair added by rename() is (new parent,
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| source), such loop would have to contain these objects and the rest of it
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| would have to exist before rename().  I.e. at the moment of loop creation
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| rename() responsible for that would be holding filesystem lock and new parent
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| would have to be equal to or a descendent of source.  But that means that
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| new parent had been equal to or a descendent of source since the moment when
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| we had acquired filesystem lock and rename() would fail with -ELOOP in that
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| case.
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| 
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| 	While this locking scheme works for arbitrary DAGs, it relies on
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| ability to check that directory is a descendent of another object.  Current
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| implementation assumes that directory graph is a tree.  This assumption is
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| also preserved by all operations (cross-directory rename on a tree that would
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| not introduce a cycle will leave it a tree and link() fails for directories).
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| 
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| 	Notice that "directory" in the above == "anything that might have
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| children", so if we are going to introduce hybrid objects we will need
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| either to make sure that link(2) doesn't work for them or to make changes
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| in is_subdir() that would make it work even in presence of such beasts.
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