[PATCH 09/53] nfs: remove d_drop()/d_alloc_parallel() from nfs_atomic_open()

NeilBrown neilb at ownmail.net
Thu Mar 12 14:11:56 PDT 2026


From: NeilBrown <neil at brown.name>

It is important that two non-create NFS "open"s of a negative dentry
don't race.  They both have only a shared lock on i_rwsem and so could
run concurrently, but they might both try to call d_splice_alias() at
the same time which is confusing at best.

nfs_atomic_open() currently avoids this by discarding the negative
dentry and creating a new one using d_alloc_parallel().  Only one thread
can successfully get the d_in_lookup() dentry, the other will wait for
the first to finish, and can use the result of that first lookup.

A proposed locking change inverts the order between i_rwsem and
d_alloc_parallel() so it will not be safe to call d_alloc_parallel()
while holding i_rwsem - even shared.

We can achieve the same effect by causing ->d_revalidate to invalidate a
negative dentry when LOOKUP_OPEN is set.  Doing this is consistent with
the "close to open" caching semantics of NFS which requires the server
to be queried whenever opening a file - cached information must not be
trusted.

With this change to ->d_revaliate (implemented in nfs_neg_need_reval) we
can be sure that we have exclusive access to any dentry that reaches
nfs_atomic_open().  Either O_CREAT was requested and so the parent is
locked exclusively, or the dentry will have DCACHE_PAR_LOOKUP set.

This means that the d_drop() and d_alloc_parallel() calls in
nfs_atomic_lookup() are no longer needed to provide exclusion

Signed-off-by: NeilBrown <neil at brown.name>
---
 fs/nfs/dir.c | 30 +++++++-----------------------
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 23 deletions(-)

diff --git a/fs/nfs/dir.c b/fs/nfs/dir.c
index 52e7656195ec..3033cc5ce12f 100644
--- a/fs/nfs/dir.c
+++ b/fs/nfs/dir.c
@@ -1657,6 +1657,13 @@ int nfs_neg_need_reval(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry,
 {
 	if (flags & (LOOKUP_CREATE | LOOKUP_RENAME_TARGET))
 		return 0;
+	if (flags & LOOKUP_OPEN)
+		/* close-to-open semantics require we go to server
+		 * on each open.  By invalidating the dentry we
+		 * also ensure nfs_atomic_open() always has exclusive
+		 * access to the dentry.
+		 */
+		return 0;
 	if (NFS_SERVER(dir)->flags & NFS_MOUNT_LOOKUP_CACHE_NONEG)
 		return 1;
 	/* Case insensitive server? Revalidate negative dentries */
@@ -2112,7 +2119,6 @@ int nfs_atomic_open(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry,
 	struct inode *inode;
 	unsigned int lookup_flags = 0;
 	unsigned long dir_verifier;
-	bool switched = false;
 	int created = 0;
 	int err;
 
@@ -2157,17 +2163,6 @@ int nfs_atomic_open(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry,
 		attr.ia_size = 0;
 	}
 
-	if (!(open_flags & O_CREAT) && !d_in_lookup(dentry)) {
-		d_drop(dentry);
-		switched = true;
-		dentry = d_alloc_parallel(dentry->d_parent,
-					  &dentry->d_name);
-		if (IS_ERR(dentry))
-			return PTR_ERR(dentry);
-		if (unlikely(!d_in_lookup(dentry)))
-			return finish_no_open(file, dentry);
-	}
-
 	ctx = create_nfs_open_context(dentry, open_flags, file);
 	err = PTR_ERR(ctx);
 	if (IS_ERR(ctx))
@@ -2210,10 +2205,6 @@ int nfs_atomic_open(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry,
 	trace_nfs_atomic_open_exit(dir, ctx, open_flags, err);
 	put_nfs_open_context(ctx);
 out:
-	if (unlikely(switched)) {
-		d_lookup_done(dentry);
-		dput(dentry);
-	}
 	return err;
 
 no_open:
@@ -2236,13 +2227,6 @@ int nfs_atomic_open(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry,
 			res = ERR_PTR(-EOPENSTALE);
 		}
 	}
-	if (switched) {
-		d_lookup_done(dentry);
-		if (!res)
-			res = dentry;
-		else
-			dput(dentry);
-	}
 	return finish_no_open(file, res);
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(nfs_atomic_open);
-- 
2.50.0.107.gf914562f5916.dirty




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