1 The text below describes the locking rules for VFS-related methods.
2 It is (believed to be) up-to-date. *Please*, if you change anything in
3 prototypes or locking protocols - update this file. And update the relevant
4 instances in the tree, don't leave that to maintainers of filesystems/devices/
5 etc. At the very least, put the list of dubious cases in the end of this file.
6 Don't turn it into log - maintainers of out-of-the-tree code are supposed to
7 be able to use diff(1).
8 Thing currently missing here: socket operations. Alexey?
10 --------------------------- dentry_operations --------------------------
12 int (*d_revalidate)(struct dentry *, unsigned int);
13 int (*d_weak_revalidate)(struct dentry *, unsigned int);
14 int (*d_hash)(const struct dentry *, struct qstr *);
15 int (*d_compare)(const struct dentry *, const struct dentry *,
16 unsigned int, const char *, const struct qstr *);
17 int (*d_delete)(struct dentry *);
18 void (*d_release)(struct dentry *);
19 void (*d_iput)(struct dentry *, struct inode *);
20 char *(*d_dname)((struct dentry *dentry, char *buffer, int buflen);
21 struct vfsmount *(*d_automount)(struct path *path);
22 int (*d_manage)(struct dentry *, bool);
25 rename_lock ->d_lock may block rcu-walk
26 d_revalidate: no no yes (ref-walk) maybe
27 d_weak_revalidate:no no yes no
29 d_compare: yes no no maybe
30 d_delete: no yes no no
31 d_release: no no yes no
35 d_automount: no no yes no
36 d_manage: no no yes (ref-walk) maybe
38 --------------------------- inode_operations ---------------------------
40 int (*create) (struct inode *,struct dentry *,umode_t, bool);
41 struct dentry * (*lookup) (struct inode *,struct dentry *, unsigned int);
42 int (*link) (struct dentry *,struct inode *,struct dentry *);
43 int (*unlink) (struct inode *,struct dentry *);
44 int (*symlink) (struct inode *,struct dentry *,const char *);
45 int (*mkdir) (struct inode *,struct dentry *,umode_t);
46 int (*rmdir) (struct inode *,struct dentry *);
47 int (*mknod) (struct inode *,struct dentry *,umode_t,dev_t);
48 int (*rename) (struct inode *, struct dentry *,
49 struct inode *, struct dentry *);
50 int (*rename2) (struct inode *, struct dentry *,
51 struct inode *, struct dentry *, unsigned int);
52 int (*readlink) (struct dentry *, char __user *,int);
53 void * (*follow_link) (struct dentry *, struct nameidata *);
54 void (*put_link) (struct dentry *, struct nameidata *, void *);
55 void (*truncate) (struct inode *);
56 int (*permission) (struct inode *, int, unsigned int);
57 int (*get_acl)(struct inode *, int);
58 int (*setattr) (struct dentry *, struct iattr *);
59 int (*getattr) (struct vfsmount *, struct dentry *, struct kstat *);
60 int (*setxattr) (struct dentry *, const char *,const void *,size_t,int);
61 ssize_t (*getxattr) (struct dentry *, const char *, void *, size_t);
62 ssize_t (*listxattr) (struct dentry *, char *, size_t);
63 int (*removexattr) (struct dentry *, const char *);
64 int (*fiemap)(struct inode *, struct fiemap_extent_info *, u64 start, u64 len);
65 void (*update_time)(struct inode *, struct timespec *, int);
66 int (*atomic_open)(struct inode *, struct dentry *,
67 struct file *, unsigned open_flag,
68 umode_t create_mode, int *opened);
69 int (*tmpfile) (struct inode *, struct dentry *, umode_t);
70 int (*dentry_open)(struct dentry *, struct file *, const struct cred *);
82 rmdir: yes (both) (see below)
83 rename: yes (all) (see below)
84 rename2: yes (all) (see below)
89 permission: no (may not block if called in rcu-walk mode)
102 Additionally, ->rmdir(), ->unlink() and ->rename() have ->i_mutex on
104 cross-directory ->rename() and rename2() has (per-superblock)
107 See Documentation/filesystems/directory-locking for more detailed discussion
108 of the locking scheme for directory operations.
110 --------------------------- super_operations ---------------------------
112 struct inode *(*alloc_inode)(struct super_block *sb);
113 void (*destroy_inode)(struct inode *);
114 void (*dirty_inode) (struct inode *, int flags);
115 int (*write_inode) (struct inode *, struct writeback_control *wbc);
116 int (*drop_inode) (struct inode *);
117 void (*evict_inode) (struct inode *);
118 void (*put_super) (struct super_block *);
119 int (*sync_fs)(struct super_block *sb, int wait);
120 int (*freeze_fs) (struct super_block *);
121 int (*unfreeze_fs) (struct super_block *);
122 int (*statfs) (struct dentry *, struct kstatfs *);
123 int (*remount_fs) (struct super_block *, int *, char *);
124 void (*umount_begin) (struct super_block *);
125 int (*show_options)(struct seq_file *, struct dentry *);
126 ssize_t (*quota_read)(struct super_block *, int, char *, size_t, loff_t);
127 ssize_t (*quota_write)(struct super_block *, int, const char *, size_t, loff_t);
128 int (*bdev_try_to_free_page)(struct super_block*, struct page*, gfp_t);
131 All may block [not true, see below]
137 drop_inode: !!!inode->i_lock!!!
143 statfs: maybe(read) (see below)
146 show_options: no (namespace_sem)
147 quota_read: no (see below)
148 quota_write: no (see below)
149 bdev_try_to_free_page: no (see below)
151 ->statfs() has s_umount (shared) when called by ustat(2) (native or
152 compat), but that's an accident of bad API; s_umount is used to pin
153 the superblock down when we only have dev_t given us by userland to
154 identify the superblock. Everything else (statfs(), fstatfs(), etc.)
155 doesn't hold it when calling ->statfs() - superblock is pinned down
156 by resolving the pathname passed to syscall.
157 ->quota_read() and ->quota_write() functions are both guaranteed to
158 be the only ones operating on the quota file by the quota code (via
159 dqio_sem) (unless an admin really wants to screw up something and
160 writes to quota files with quotas on). For other details about locking
161 see also dquot_operations section.
162 ->bdev_try_to_free_page is called from the ->releasepage handler of
163 the block device inode. See there for more details.
165 --------------------------- file_system_type ---------------------------
167 int (*get_sb) (struct file_system_type *, int,
168 const char *, void *, struct vfsmount *);
169 struct dentry *(*mount) (struct file_system_type *, int,
170 const char *, void *);
171 void (*kill_sb) (struct super_block *);
177 ->mount() returns ERR_PTR or the root dentry; its superblock should be locked
179 ->kill_sb() takes a write-locked superblock, does all shutdown work on it,
180 unlocks and drops the reference.
182 --------------------------- address_space_operations --------------------------
184 int (*writepage)(struct page *page, struct writeback_control *wbc);
185 int (*readpage)(struct file *, struct page *);
186 int (*sync_page)(struct page *);
187 int (*writepages)(struct address_space *, struct writeback_control *);
188 int (*set_page_dirty)(struct page *page);
189 int (*readpages)(struct file *filp, struct address_space *mapping,
190 struct list_head *pages, unsigned nr_pages);
191 int (*write_begin)(struct file *, struct address_space *mapping,
192 loff_t pos, unsigned len, unsigned flags,
193 struct page **pagep, void **fsdata);
194 int (*write_end)(struct file *, struct address_space *mapping,
195 loff_t pos, unsigned len, unsigned copied,
196 struct page *page, void *fsdata);
197 sector_t (*bmap)(struct address_space *, sector_t);
198 void (*invalidatepage) (struct page *, unsigned int, unsigned int);
199 int (*releasepage) (struct page *, int);
200 void (*freepage)(struct page *);
201 int (*direct_IO)(int, struct kiocb *, struct iov_iter *iter, loff_t offset);
202 int (*get_xip_mem)(struct address_space *, pgoff_t, int, void **,
204 int (*migratepage)(struct address_space *, struct page *, struct page *);
205 int (*launder_page)(struct page *);
206 int (*is_partially_uptodate)(struct page *, unsigned long, unsigned long);
207 int (*error_remove_page)(struct address_space *, struct page *);
208 int (*swap_activate)(struct file *);
209 int (*swap_deactivate)(struct file *);
212 All except set_page_dirty and freepage may block
214 PageLocked(page) i_mutex
215 writepage: yes, unlocks (see below)
216 readpage: yes, unlocks
221 write_begin: locks the page yes
222 write_end: yes, unlocks yes
229 migratepage: yes (both)
231 is_partially_uptodate: yes
232 error_remove_page: yes
236 ->write_begin(), ->write_end(), ->sync_page() and ->readpage()
237 may be called from the request handler (/dev/loop).
239 ->readpage() unlocks the page, either synchronously or via I/O
242 ->readpages() populates the pagecache with the passed pages and starts
243 I/O against them. They come unlocked upon I/O completion.
245 ->writepage() is used for two purposes: for "memory cleansing" and for
246 "sync". These are quite different operations and the behaviour may differ
247 depending upon the mode.
249 If writepage is called for sync (wbc->sync_mode != WBC_SYNC_NONE) then
250 it *must* start I/O against the page, even if that would involve
251 blocking on in-progress I/O.
253 If writepage is called for memory cleansing (sync_mode ==
254 WBC_SYNC_NONE) then its role is to get as much writeout underway as
255 possible. So writepage should try to avoid blocking against
256 currently-in-progress I/O.
258 If the filesystem is not called for "sync" and it determines that it
259 would need to block against in-progress I/O to be able to start new I/O
260 against the page the filesystem should redirty the page with
261 redirty_page_for_writepage(), then unlock the page and return zero.
262 This may also be done to avoid internal deadlocks, but rarely.
264 If the filesystem is called for sync then it must wait on any
265 in-progress I/O and then start new I/O.
267 The filesystem should unlock the page synchronously, before returning to the
268 caller, unless ->writepage() returns special WRITEPAGE_ACTIVATE
269 value. WRITEPAGE_ACTIVATE means that page cannot really be written out
270 currently, and VM should stop calling ->writepage() on this page for some
271 time. VM does this by moving page to the head of the active list, hence the
274 Unless the filesystem is going to redirty_page_for_writepage(), unlock the page
275 and return zero, writepage *must* run set_page_writeback() against the page,
276 followed by unlocking it. Once set_page_writeback() has been run against the
277 page, write I/O can be submitted and the write I/O completion handler must run
278 end_page_writeback() once the I/O is complete. If no I/O is submitted, the
279 filesystem must run end_page_writeback() against the page before returning from
282 That is: after 2.5.12, pages which are under writeout are *not* locked. Note,
283 if the filesystem needs the page to be locked during writeout, that is ok, too,
284 the page is allowed to be unlocked at any point in time between the calls to
285 set_page_writeback() and end_page_writeback().
287 Note, failure to run either redirty_page_for_writepage() or the combination of
288 set_page_writeback()/end_page_writeback() on a page submitted to writepage
289 will leave the page itself marked clean but it will be tagged as dirty in the
290 radix tree. This incoherency can lead to all sorts of hard-to-debug problems
291 in the filesystem like having dirty inodes at umount and losing written data.
293 ->sync_page() locking rules are not well-defined - usually it is called
294 with lock on page, but that is not guaranteed. Considering the currently
295 existing instances of this method ->sync_page() itself doesn't look
298 ->writepages() is used for periodic writeback and for syscall-initiated
299 sync operations. The address_space should start I/O against at least
300 *nr_to_write pages. *nr_to_write must be decremented for each page which is
301 written. The address_space implementation may write more (or less) pages
302 than *nr_to_write asks for, but it should try to be reasonably close. If
303 nr_to_write is NULL, all dirty pages must be written.
305 writepages should _only_ write pages which are present on
308 ->set_page_dirty() is called from various places in the kernel
309 when the target page is marked as needing writeback. It may be called
310 under spinlock (it cannot block) and is sometimes called with the page
313 ->bmap() is currently used by legacy ioctl() (FIBMAP) provided by some
314 filesystems and by the swapper. The latter will eventually go away. Please,
315 keep it that way and don't breed new callers.
317 ->invalidatepage() is called when the filesystem must attempt to drop
318 some or all of the buffers from the page when it is being truncated. It
319 returns zero on success. If ->invalidatepage is zero, the kernel uses
320 block_invalidatepage() instead.
322 ->releasepage() is called when the kernel is about to try to drop the
323 buffers from the page in preparation for freeing it. It returns zero to
324 indicate that the buffers are (or may be) freeable. If ->releasepage is zero,
325 the kernel assumes that the fs has no private interest in the buffers.
327 ->freepage() is called when the kernel is done dropping the page
330 ->launder_page() may be called prior to releasing a page if
331 it is still found to be dirty. It returns zero if the page was successfully
332 cleaned, or an error value if not. Note that in order to prevent the page
333 getting mapped back in and redirtied, it needs to be kept locked
334 across the entire operation.
336 ->swap_activate will be called with a non-zero argument on
337 files backing (non block device backed) swapfiles. A return value
338 of zero indicates success, in which case this file can be used for
339 backing swapspace. The swapspace operations will be proxied to the
340 address space operations.
342 ->swap_deactivate() will be called in the sys_swapoff()
343 path after ->swap_activate() returned success.
345 ----------------------- file_lock_operations ------------------------------
347 void (*fl_copy_lock)(struct file_lock *, struct file_lock *);
348 void (*fl_release_private)(struct file_lock *);
352 inode->i_lock may block
354 fl_release_private: maybe maybe[1]
356 [1]: ->fl_release_private for flock or POSIX locks is currently allowed
357 to block. Leases however can still be freed while the i_lock is held and
358 so fl_release_private called on a lease should not block.
360 ----------------------- lock_manager_operations ---------------------------
362 int (*lm_compare_owner)(struct file_lock *, struct file_lock *);
363 unsigned long (*lm_owner_key)(struct file_lock *);
364 void (*lm_notify)(struct file_lock *); /* unblock callback */
365 int (*lm_grant)(struct file_lock *, struct file_lock *, int);
366 void (*lm_break)(struct file_lock *); /* break_lease callback */
367 int (*lm_change)(struct file_lock **, int);
371 inode->i_lock blocked_lock_lock may block
372 lm_compare_owner: yes[1] maybe no
373 lm_owner_key yes[1] yes no
374 lm_notify: yes yes no
379 [1]: ->lm_compare_owner and ->lm_owner_key are generally called with
380 *an* inode->i_lock held. It may not be the i_lock of the inode
381 associated with either file_lock argument! This is the case with deadlock
382 detection, since the code has to chase down the owners of locks that may
383 be entirely unrelated to the one on which the lock is being acquired.
384 For deadlock detection however, the blocked_lock_lock is also held. The
385 fact that these locks are held ensures that the file_locks do not
386 disappear out from under you while doing the comparison or generating an
389 --------------------------- buffer_head -----------------------------------
391 void (*b_end_io)(struct buffer_head *bh, int uptodate);
394 called from interrupts. In other words, extreme care is needed here.
395 bh is locked, but that's all warranties we have here. Currently only RAID1,
396 highmem, fs/buffer.c, and fs/ntfs/aops.c are providing these. Block devices
397 call this method upon the IO completion.
399 --------------------------- block_device_operations -----------------------
401 int (*open) (struct block_device *, fmode_t);
402 int (*release) (struct gendisk *, fmode_t);
403 int (*ioctl) (struct block_device *, fmode_t, unsigned, unsigned long);
404 int (*compat_ioctl) (struct block_device *, fmode_t, unsigned, unsigned long);
405 int (*direct_access) (struct block_device *, sector_t, void **, unsigned long *);
406 int (*media_changed) (struct gendisk *);
407 void (*unlock_native_capacity) (struct gendisk *);
408 int (*revalidate_disk) (struct gendisk *);
409 int (*getgeo)(struct block_device *, struct hd_geometry *);
410 void (*swap_slot_free_notify) (struct block_device *, unsigned long);
420 unlock_native_capacity: no
423 swap_slot_free_notify: no (see below)
425 media_changed, unlock_native_capacity and revalidate_disk are called only from
428 swap_slot_free_notify is called with swap_lock and sometimes the page lock
432 --------------------------- file_operations -------------------------------
434 loff_t (*llseek) (struct file *, loff_t, int);
435 ssize_t (*read) (struct file *, char __user *, size_t, loff_t *);
436 ssize_t (*write) (struct file *, const char __user *, size_t, loff_t *);
437 ssize_t (*aio_read) (struct kiocb *, const struct iovec *, unsigned long, loff_t);
438 ssize_t (*aio_write) (struct kiocb *, const struct iovec *, unsigned long, loff_t);
439 ssize_t (*read_iter) (struct kiocb *, struct iov_iter *);
440 ssize_t (*write_iter) (struct kiocb *, struct iov_iter *);
441 int (*iterate) (struct file *, struct dir_context *);
442 unsigned int (*poll) (struct file *, struct poll_table_struct *);
443 long (*unlocked_ioctl) (struct file *, unsigned int, unsigned long);
444 long (*compat_ioctl) (struct file *, unsigned int, unsigned long);
445 int (*mmap) (struct file *, struct vm_area_struct *);
446 int (*open) (struct inode *, struct file *);
447 int (*flush) (struct file *);
448 int (*release) (struct inode *, struct file *);
449 int (*fsync) (struct file *, loff_t start, loff_t end, int datasync);
450 int (*aio_fsync) (struct kiocb *, int datasync);
451 int (*fasync) (int, struct file *, int);
452 int (*lock) (struct file *, int, struct file_lock *);
453 ssize_t (*readv) (struct file *, const struct iovec *, unsigned long,
455 ssize_t (*writev) (struct file *, const struct iovec *, unsigned long,
457 ssize_t (*sendfile) (struct file *, loff_t *, size_t, read_actor_t,
459 ssize_t (*sendpage) (struct file *, struct page *, int, size_t,
461 unsigned long (*get_unmapped_area)(struct file *, unsigned long,
462 unsigned long, unsigned long, unsigned long);
463 int (*check_flags)(int);
464 int (*flock) (struct file *, int, struct file_lock *);
465 ssize_t (*splice_write)(struct pipe_inode_info *, struct file *, loff_t *,
466 size_t, unsigned int);
467 ssize_t (*splice_read)(struct file *, loff_t *, struct pipe_inode_info *,
468 size_t, unsigned int);
469 int (*setlease)(struct file *, long, struct file_lock **, void **);
470 long (*fallocate)(struct file *, int, loff_t, loff_t);
476 ->llseek() locking has moved from llseek to the individual llseek
477 implementations. If your fs is not using generic_file_llseek, you
478 need to acquire and release the appropriate locks in your ->llseek().
479 For many filesystems, it is probably safe to acquire the inode
480 mutex or just to use i_size_read() instead.
481 Note: this does not protect the file->f_pos against concurrent modifications
482 since this is something the userspace has to take care about.
484 ->fasync() is responsible for maintaining the FASYNC bit in filp->f_flags.
485 Most instances call fasync_helper(), which does that maintenance, so it's
486 not normally something one needs to worry about. Return values > 0 will be
487 mapped to zero in the VFS layer.
489 ->readdir() and ->ioctl() on directories must be changed. Ideally we would
490 move ->readdir() to inode_operations and use a separate method for directory
491 ->ioctl() or kill the latter completely. One of the problems is that for
492 anything that resembles union-mount we won't have a struct file for all
493 components. And there are other reasons why the current interface is a mess...
495 ->read on directories probably must go away - we should just enforce -EISDIR
496 in sys_read() and friends.
498 ->setlease operations should call generic_setlease() before or after setting
499 the lease within the individual filesystem to record the result of the
502 --------------------------- dquot_operations -------------------------------
504 int (*write_dquot) (struct dquot *);
505 int (*acquire_dquot) (struct dquot *);
506 int (*release_dquot) (struct dquot *);
507 int (*mark_dirty) (struct dquot *);
508 int (*write_info) (struct super_block *, int);
510 These operations are intended to be more or less wrapping functions that ensure
511 a proper locking wrt the filesystem and call the generic quota operations.
513 What filesystem should expect from the generic quota functions:
515 FS recursion Held locks when called
516 write_dquot: yes dqonoff_sem or dqptr_sem
517 acquire_dquot: yes dqonoff_sem or dqptr_sem
518 release_dquot: yes dqonoff_sem or dqptr_sem
520 write_info: yes dqonoff_sem
522 FS recursion means calling ->quota_read() and ->quota_write() from superblock
525 More details about quota locking can be found in fs/dquot.c.
527 --------------------------- vm_operations_struct -----------------------------
529 void (*open)(struct vm_area_struct*);
530 void (*close)(struct vm_area_struct*);
531 int (*fault)(struct vm_area_struct*, struct vm_fault *);
532 int (*page_mkwrite)(struct vm_area_struct *, struct vm_fault *);
533 int (*access)(struct vm_area_struct *, unsigned long, void*, int, int);
536 mmap_sem PageLocked(page)
539 fault: yes can return with page locked
541 page_mkwrite: yes can return with page locked
544 ->fault() is called when a previously not present pte is about
545 to be faulted in. The filesystem must find and return the page associated
546 with the passed in "pgoff" in the vm_fault structure. If it is possible that
547 the page may be truncated and/or invalidated, then the filesystem must lock
548 the page, then ensure it is not already truncated (the page lock will block
549 subsequent truncate), and then return with VM_FAULT_LOCKED, and the page
550 locked. The VM will unlock the page.
552 ->map_pages() is called when VM asks to map easy accessible pages.
553 Filesystem should find and map pages associated with offsets from "pgoff"
554 till "max_pgoff". ->map_pages() is called with page table locked and must
555 not block. If it's not possible to reach a page without blocking,
556 filesystem should skip it. Filesystem should use do_set_pte() to setup
557 page table entry. Pointer to entry associated with offset "pgoff" is
558 passed in "pte" field in vm_fault structure. Pointers to entries for other
559 offsets should be calculated relative to "pte".
561 ->page_mkwrite() is called when a previously read-only pte is
562 about to become writeable. The filesystem again must ensure that there are
563 no truncate/invalidate races, and then return with the page locked. If
564 the page has been truncated, the filesystem should not look up a new page
565 like the ->fault() handler, but simply return with VM_FAULT_NOPAGE, which
566 will cause the VM to retry the fault.
568 ->access() is called when get_user_pages() fails in
569 access_process_vm(), typically used to debug a process through
570 /proc/pid/mem or ptrace. This function is needed only for
571 VM_IO | VM_PFNMAP VMAs.
573 ================================================================================
576 (if you break something or notice that it is broken and do not fix it yourself
577 - at least put it here)