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ext4: fix ABBA deadlock in ext4_xattr_inode_cache_find()

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Syzbot/stress-ng reported an ABBA deadlock in ext4 when exercising
concurrent xattr workloads (using the ea_inode mount/format option).

The deadlock occurs between the running transaction and the eviction
thread:
- Task 1 (stress-ng): Holds a reference to a shared mbcache_entry (ce)
  and calls ext4_xattr_inode_cache_find() -> ext4_iget() to retrieve
  the corresponding EA inode. Since the EA inode is currently being
  evicted, ext4_iget() blocks in __wait_on_freeing_inode() waiting for
  eviction to complete.
- Task 2 (eviction thread): Currently evicting the same EA inode in
  ext4_evict_ea_inode(). It calls mb_cache_entry_wait_unused(oe) which
  blocks waiting for Task 1 to release the reference to the mbcache_entry.

To break this deadlock, implement a new ext4_iget() configuration flag
named EXT4_IGET_NOWAIT. When set, perform a non-blocking lookup of the
inode via VFS's find_inode_nowait() API.

If the inode is currently being evicted (marked with I_FREEING or
I_WILL_FREE) or created (I_CREATING), or if it is not present in the VFS
inode cache (cache miss), simply skip it (returning -ENOENT) rather than
waiting for eviction/creation to complete, breaking the ABBA cycle.

Since we return -ENOENT immediately on a cache miss, we never attempt to
allocate a new inode or call iget_locked(), completely eliminating any
TOCTOU race window.

If the returned inode is I_NEW, wait for its initialization to clear via
wait_on_new_inode(). If initialization fails and the inode is unhashed
during wait_on_new_inode() waking up (e.g., due to an I/O read error in
another thread), safely drop the reference and return -ENOENT. This
unhashed check is executed unconditionally on all cache-hit pathways to
properly handle concurrent initialization failures.

Finally, standard validation checks (including is_bad_inode,
EXT4_EA_INODE_FL, file_acl, and xattr flags) are executed as normal inside
check_igot_inode() to fully guarantee VFS-layer safety.

In ext4_xattr_inode_cache_find(), invoke ext4_iget() with the new
EXT4_IGET_NOWAIT flag to perform the non-blocking cache search.

Suggested-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Reported-by: Colin Ian King <colin.i.king@gmail.com>
Closes: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219283
Fixes: 0a46ef2347 ("ext4: do not create EA inode under buffer lock")
Signed-off-by: Aditya Prakash Srivastava <aditya.ansh182@gmail.com>
Tested-by: Colin Ian King <colin.i.king@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260626054821.1729-1-aditya.ansh182@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
This commit is contained in:
Aditya Prakash Srivastava 2026-06-26 05:48:21 +00:00 • committed by Theodore Ts'o
commit 03438084a7
3 changed files with 35 additions and 5 deletions
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