Merge branch 'locks' of git://linux-nfs.org/~bfields/linux

* 'locks' of git://linux-nfs.org/~bfields/linux:
  nfsd: remove IS_ISMNDLCK macro
  Rework /proc/locks via seq_files and seq_list helpers
  fs/locks.c: use list_for_each_entry() instead of list_for_each()
  NFS: clean up explicit check for mandatory locks
  AFS: clean up explicit check for mandatory locks
  9PFS: clean up explicit check for mandatory locks
  GFS2: clean up explicit check for mandatory locks
  Cleanup macros for distinguishing mandatory locks
  Documentation: move locks.txt in filesystems/
  locks: add warning about mandatory locking races
  Documentation: move mandatory locking documentation to filesystems/
  locks: Fix potential OOPS in generic_setlease()
  Use list_first_entry in locks_wake_up_blocks
  locks: fix flock_lock_file() comment
  Memory shortage can result in inconsistent flocks state
  locks: kill redundant local variable
  locks: reverse order of posix_locks_conflict() arguments
This commit is contained in:
Linus Torvalds
2007-10-15 16:07:40 -07:00
14 changed files with 158 additions and 147 deletions

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@@ -52,6 +52,10 @@ isofs.txt
- info and mount options for the ISO 9660 (CDROM) filesystem.
jfs.txt
- info and mount options for the JFS filesystem.
locks.txt
- info on file locking implementations, flock() vs. fcntl(), etc.
mandatory-locking.txt
- info on the Linux implementation of Sys V mandatory file locking.
ncpfs.txt
- info on Novell Netware(tm) filesystem using NCP protocol.
ntfs.txt

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@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
File Locking Release Notes
Andy Walker <andy@lysaker.kvaerner.no>
12 May 1997
1. What's New?
--------------
1.1 Broken Flock Emulation
--------------------------
The old flock(2) emulation in the kernel was swapped for proper BSD
compatible flock(2) support in the 1.3.x series of kernels. With the
release of the 2.1.x kernel series, support for the old emulation has
been totally removed, so that we don't need to carry this baggage
forever.
This should not cause problems for anybody, since everybody using a
2.1.x kernel should have updated their C library to a suitable version
anyway (see the file "Documentation/Changes".)
1.2 Allow Mixed Locks Again
---------------------------
1.2.1 Typical Problems - Sendmail
---------------------------------
Because sendmail was unable to use the old flock() emulation, many sendmail
installations use fcntl() instead of flock(). This is true of Slackware 3.0
for example. This gave rise to some other subtle problems if sendmail was
configured to rebuild the alias file. Sendmail tried to lock the aliases.dir
file with fcntl() at the same time as the GDBM routines tried to lock this
file with flock(). With pre 1.3.96 kernels this could result in deadlocks that,
over time, or under a very heavy mail load, would eventually cause the kernel
to lock solid with deadlocked processes.
1.2.2 The Solution
------------------
The solution I have chosen, after much experimentation and discussion,
is to make flock() and fcntl() locks oblivious to each other. Both can
exists, and neither will have any effect on the other.
I wanted the two lock styles to be cooperative, but there were so many
race and deadlock conditions that the current solution was the only
practical one. It puts us in the same position as, for example, SunOS
4.1.x and several other commercial Unices. The only OS's that support
cooperative flock()/fcntl() are those that emulate flock() using
fcntl(), with all the problems that implies.
1.3 Mandatory Locking As A Mount Option
---------------------------------------
Mandatory locking, as described in 'Documentation/filesystems/mandatory.txt'
was prior to this release a general configuration option that was valid for
all mounted filesystems. This had a number of inherent dangers, not the
least of which was the ability to freeze an NFS server by asking it to read
a file for which a mandatory lock existed.
From this release of the kernel, mandatory locking can be turned on and off
on a per-filesystem basis, using the mount options 'mand' and 'nomand'.
The default is to disallow mandatory locking. The intention is that
mandatory locking only be enabled on a local filesystem as the specific need
arises.

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@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
Mandatory File Locking For The Linux Operating System
Andy Walker <andy@lysaker.kvaerner.no>
15 April 1996
(Updated September 2007)
0. Why you should avoid mandatory locking
-----------------------------------------
The Linux implementation is prey to a number of difficult-to-fix race
conditions which in practice make it not dependable:
- The write system call checks for a mandatory lock only once
at its start. It is therefore possible for a lock request to
be granted after this check but before the data is modified.
A process may then see file data change even while a mandatory
lock was held.
- Similarly, an exclusive lock may be granted on a file after
the kernel has decided to proceed with a read, but before the
read has actually completed, and the reading process may see
the file data in a state which should not have been visible
to it.
- Similar races make the claimed mutual exclusion between lock
and mmap similarly unreliable.
1. What is mandatory locking?
------------------------------
Mandatory locking is kernel enforced file locking, as opposed to the more usual
cooperative file locking used to guarantee sequential access to files among
processes. File locks are applied using the flock() and fcntl() system calls
(and the lockf() library routine which is a wrapper around fcntl().) It is
normally a process' responsibility to check for locks on a file it wishes to
update, before applying its own lock, updating the file and unlocking it again.
The most commonly used example of this (and in the case of sendmail, the most
troublesome) is access to a user's mailbox. The mail user agent and the mail
transfer agent must guard against updating the mailbox at the same time, and
prevent reading the mailbox while it is being updated.
In a perfect world all processes would use and honour a cooperative, or
"advisory" locking scheme. However, the world isn't perfect, and there's
a lot of poorly written code out there.
In trying to address this problem, the designers of System V UNIX came up
with a "mandatory" locking scheme, whereby the operating system kernel would
block attempts by a process to write to a file that another process holds a
"read" -or- "shared" lock on, and block attempts to both read and write to a
file that a process holds a "write " -or- "exclusive" lock on.
The System V mandatory locking scheme was intended to have as little impact as
possible on existing user code. The scheme is based on marking individual files
as candidates for mandatory locking, and using the existing fcntl()/lockf()
interface for applying locks just as if they were normal, advisory locks.
Note 1: In saying "file" in the paragraphs above I am actually not telling
the whole truth. System V locking is based on fcntl(). The granularity of
fcntl() is such that it allows the locking of byte ranges in files, in addition
to entire files, so the mandatory locking rules also have byte level
granularity.
Note 2: POSIX.1 does not specify any scheme for mandatory locking, despite
borrowing the fcntl() locking scheme from System V. The mandatory locking
scheme is defined by the System V Interface Definition (SVID) Version 3.
2. Marking a file for mandatory locking
---------------------------------------
A file is marked as a candidate for mandatory locking by setting the group-id
bit in its file mode but removing the group-execute bit. This is an otherwise
meaningless combination, and was chosen by the System V implementors so as not
to break existing user programs.
Note that the group-id bit is usually automatically cleared by the kernel when
a setgid file is written to. This is a security measure. The kernel has been
modified to recognize the special case of a mandatory lock candidate and to
refrain from clearing this bit. Similarly the kernel has been modified not
to run mandatory lock candidates with setgid privileges.
3. Available implementations
----------------------------
I have considered the implementations of mandatory locking available with
SunOS 4.1.x, Solaris 2.x and HP-UX 9.x.
Generally I have tried to make the most sense out of the behaviour exhibited
by these three reference systems. There are many anomalies.
All the reference systems reject all calls to open() for a file on which
another process has outstanding mandatory locks. This is in direct
contravention of SVID 3, which states that only calls to open() with the
O_TRUNC flag set should be rejected. The Linux implementation follows the SVID
definition, which is the "Right Thing", since only calls with O_TRUNC can
modify the contents of the file.
HP-UX even disallows open() with O_TRUNC for a file with advisory locks, not
just mandatory locks. That would appear to contravene POSIX.1.
mmap() is another interesting case. All the operating systems mentioned
prevent mandatory locks from being applied to an mmap()'ed file, but HP-UX
also disallows advisory locks for such a file. SVID actually specifies the
paranoid HP-UX behaviour.
In my opinion only MAP_SHARED mappings should be immune from locking, and then
only from mandatory locks - that is what is currently implemented.
SunOS is so hopeless that it doesn't even honour the O_NONBLOCK flag for
mandatory locks, so reads and writes to locked files always block when they
should return EAGAIN.
I'm afraid that this is such an esoteric area that the semantics described
below are just as valid as any others, so long as the main points seem to
agree.
4. Semantics
------------
1. Mandatory locks can only be applied via the fcntl()/lockf() locking
interface - in other words the System V/POSIX interface. BSD style
locks using flock() never result in a mandatory lock.
2. If a process has locked a region of a file with a mandatory read lock, then
other processes are permitted to read from that region. If any of these
processes attempts to write to the region it will block until the lock is
released, unless the process has opened the file with the O_NONBLOCK
flag in which case the system call will return immediately with the error
status EAGAIN.
3. If a process has locked a region of a file with a mandatory write lock, all
attempts to read or write to that region block until the lock is released,
unless a process has opened the file with the O_NONBLOCK flag in which case
the system call will return immediately with the error status EAGAIN.
4. Calls to open() with O_TRUNC, or to creat(), on a existing file that has
any mandatory locks owned by other processes will be rejected with the
error status EAGAIN.
5. Attempts to apply a mandatory lock to a file that is memory mapped and
shared (via mmap() with MAP_SHARED) will be rejected with the error status
EAGAIN.
6. Attempts to create a shared memory map of a file (via mmap() with MAP_SHARED)
that has any mandatory locks in effect will be rejected with the error status
EAGAIN.
5. Which system calls are affected?
-----------------------------------
Those which modify a file's contents, not just the inode. That gives read(),
write(), readv(), writev(), open(), creat(), mmap(), truncate() and
ftruncate(). truncate() and ftruncate() are considered to be "write" actions
for the purposes of mandatory locking.
The affected region is usually defined as stretching from the current position
for the total number of bytes read or written. For the truncate calls it is
defined as the bytes of a file removed or added (we must also consider bytes
added, as a lock can specify just "the whole file", rather than a specific
range of bytes.)
Note 3: I may have overlooked some system calls that need mandatory lock
checking in my eagerness to get this code out the door. Please let me know, or
better still fix the system calls yourself and submit a patch to me or Linus.
6. Warning!
-----------
Not even root can override a mandatory lock, so runaway processes can wreak
havoc if they lock crucial files. The way around it is to change the file
permissions (remove the setgid bit) before trying to read or write to it.
Of course, that might be a bit tricky if the system is hung :-(