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Based on kernel version 3.9. Page generated on 2013-05-02 23:06 EST.

1		Locking scheme used for directory operations is based on two
2	kinds of locks - per-inode (->i_mutex) and per-filesystem
3	(->s_vfs_rename_mutex).
4	
5		For our purposes all operations fall in 5 classes:
6	
7	1) read access.  Locking rules: caller locks directory we are accessing.
8	
9	2) object creation.  Locking rules: same as above.
10	
11	3) object removal.  Locking rules: caller locks parent, finds victim,
12	locks victim and calls the method.
13	
14	4) rename() that is _not_ cross-directory.  Locking rules: caller locks
15	the parent, finds source and target, if target already exists - locks it
16	and then calls the method.
17	
18	5) link creation.  Locking rules:
19		* lock parent
20		* check that source is not a directory
21		* lock source
22		* call the method.
23	
24	6) cross-directory rename.  The trickiest in the whole bunch.  Locking
25	rules:
26		* lock the filesystem
27		* lock parents in "ancestors first" order.
28		* find source and target.
29		* if old parent is equal to or is a descendent of target
30			fail with -ENOTEMPTY
31		* if new parent is equal to or is a descendent of source
32			fail with -ELOOP
33		* if target exists - lock it.
34		* call the method.
35	
36	
37	The rules above obviously guarantee that all directories that are going to be
38	read, modified or removed by method will be locked by caller.
39	
40	
41	If no directory is its own ancestor, the scheme above is deadlock-free.
42	Proof:
43	
44		First of all, at any moment we have a partial ordering of the
45	objects - A < B iff A is an ancestor of B.
46	
47		That ordering can change.  However, the following is true:
48	
49	(1) if object removal or non-cross-directory rename holds lock on A and
50	    attempts to acquire lock on B, A will remain the parent of B until we
51	    acquire the lock on B.  (Proof: only cross-directory rename can change
52	    the parent of object and it would have to lock the parent).
53	
54	(2) if cross-directory rename holds the lock on filesystem, order will not
55	    change until rename acquires all locks.  (Proof: other cross-directory
56	    renames will be blocked on filesystem lock and we don't start changing
57	    the order until we had acquired all locks).
58	
59	(3) any operation holds at most one lock on non-directory object and
60	    that lock is acquired after all other locks.  (Proof: see descriptions
61	    of operations).
62	
63		Now consider the minimal deadlock.  Each process is blocked on
64	attempt to acquire some lock and already holds at least one lock.  Let's
65	consider the set of contended locks.  First of all, filesystem lock is
66	not contended, since any process blocked on it is not holding any locks.
67	Thus all processes are blocked on ->i_mutex.
68	
69		Non-directory objects are not contended due to (3).  Thus link
70	creation can't be a part of deadlock - it can't be blocked on source
71	and it means that it doesn't hold any locks.
72	
73		Any contended object is either held by cross-directory rename or
74	has a child that is also contended.  Indeed, suppose that it is held by
75	operation other than cross-directory rename.  Then the lock this operation
76	is blocked on belongs to child of that object due to (1).
77	
78		It means that one of the operations is cross-directory rename.
79	Otherwise the set of contended objects would be infinite - each of them
80	would have a contended child and we had assumed that no object is its
81	own descendent.  Moreover, there is exactly one cross-directory rename
82	(see above).
83	
84		Consider the object blocking the cross-directory rename.  One
85	of its descendents is locked by cross-directory rename (otherwise we
86	would again have an infinite set of contended objects).  But that
87	means that cross-directory rename is taking locks out of order.  Due
88	to (2) the order hadn't changed since we had acquired filesystem lock.
89	But locking rules for cross-directory rename guarantee that we do not
90	try to acquire lock on descendent before the lock on ancestor.
91	Contradiction.  I.e.  deadlock is impossible.  Q.E.D.
92	
93	
94		These operations are guaranteed to avoid loop creation.  Indeed,
95	the only operation that could introduce loops is cross-directory rename.
96	Since the only new (parent, child) pair added by rename() is (new parent,
97	source), such loop would have to contain these objects and the rest of it
98	would have to exist before rename().  I.e. at the moment of loop creation
99	rename() responsible for that would be holding filesystem lock and new parent
100	would have to be equal to or a descendent of source.  But that means that
101	new parent had been equal to or a descendent of source since the moment when
102	we had acquired filesystem lock and rename() would fail with -ELOOP in that
103	case.
104	
105		While this locking scheme works for arbitrary DAGs, it relies on
106	ability to check that directory is a descendent of another object.  Current
107	implementation assumes that directory graph is a tree.  This assumption is
108	also preserved by all operations (cross-directory rename on a tree that would
109	not introduce a cycle will leave it a tree and link() fails for directories).
110	
111		Notice that "directory" in the above == "anything that might have
112	children", so if we are going to introduce hybrid objects we will need
113	either to make sure that link(2) doesn't work for them or to make changes
114	in is_subdir() that would make it work even in presence of such beasts.
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