Fix a crash when block device is read and block size is changed at the same time
The kernel may crash when block size is changed and I/O is issued
simultaneously.
Because some subsystems (udev or lvm) may read any block device anytime,
the bug actually puts any code that changes a block device size in
jeopardy.
The crash can be reproduced if you place "msleep(1000)" to
blkdev_get_blocks just before "bh->b_size = max_blocks <<
inode->i_blkbits;".
Then, run "dd if=/dev/ram0 of=/dev/null bs=4k count=1 iflag=direct"
While it is waiting in msleep, run "blockdev --setbsz 2048 /dev/ram0"
You get a BUG.
The direct and non-direct I/O is written with the assumption that block
size does not change. It doesn't seem practical to fix these crashes
one-by-one there may be many crash possibilities when block size changes
at a certain place and it is impossible to find them all and verify the
code.
This patch introduces a new rw-lock bd_block_size_semaphore. The lock is
taken for read during I/O. It is taken for write when changing block
size. Consequently, block size can't be changed while I/O is being
submitted.
For asynchronous I/O, the patch only prevents block size change while
the I/O is being submitted. The block size can change when the I/O is in
progress or when the I/O is being finished. This is acceptable because
there are no accesses to block size when asynchronous I/O is being
finished.
The patch prevents block size changing while the device is mapped with
mmap.
projects / ~andy / linux / commit