# Re: Proposal to fix pwrite with O\_APPEND via pwritev2 flag

- From: Rich Felker \<hidden\>
- Date: 2020-02-05 04:42:19 
- List: linux-api
- Page: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-api/2020/02/171955
- Thread: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-fsdevel/2020/01/171280/t.md

```text
On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 07:02:43PM -0500, Rich Felker wrote:
> There's a longstanding unfixable (due to API stability) bug in the
> pwrite syscall:
> 
> http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/pwrite.2.html#BUGS
> 
> whereby it wrongly honors O_APPEND if set, ignoring the caller-passed
> offset. Now that there's a pwritev2 syscall that takes a flags
> argument, it's possible to fix this without breaking stability by
> adding a new RWF_NOAPPEND flag, which callers that want the fixed
> behavior can then pass.
> 
> I have a completely untested patch to add such a flag, but would like
> to get a feel for whether the concept is acceptable before putting
> time into testing it. If so, I'll submit this as a proper patch with
> detailed commit message etc. Draft is below.

I went ahead and tested this, and it works as intended, so I'll post a
proper patch with commit message.

Rich



> diff --git a/include/linux/fs.h b/include/linux/fs.h
> index e0d909d35763..3a769a972f79 100644
> --- a/include/linux/fs.h
> +++ b/include/linux/fs.h
> @@ -3397,6 +3397,8 @@ static inline int kiocb_set_rw_flags(struct kiocb *ki, rwf_t flags)
>  {
>  	if (unlikely(flags & ~RWF_SUPPORTED))
>  		return -EOPNOTSUPP;
> +	if (unlikely((flags & RWF_APPEND) && (flags & RWF_NOAPPEND)))
> +		return -EINVAL;
>  
>  	if (flags & RWF_NOWAIT) {
>  		if (!(ki->ki_filp->f_mode & FMODE_NOWAIT))
> @@ -3411,6 +3413,8 @@ static inline int kiocb_set_rw_flags(struct kiocb *ki, rwf_t flags)
>  		ki->ki_flags |= (IOCB_DSYNC | IOCB_SYNC);
>  	if (flags & RWF_APPEND)
>  		ki->ki_flags |= IOCB_APPEND;
> +	if (flags & RWF_NOAPPEND)
> +		ki->ki_flags &= ~IOCB_APPEND;
>  	return 0;
>  }
>  
> diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/fs.h b/include/uapi/linux/fs.h
> index 379a612f8f1d..591357d9b3c9 100644
> --- a/include/uapi/linux/fs.h
> +++ b/include/uapi/linux/fs.h
> @@ -299,8 +299,11 @@ typedef int __bitwise __kernel_rwf_t;
>  /* per-IO O_APPEND */
>  #define RWF_APPEND	((__force __kernel_rwf_t)0x00000010)
>  
> +/* per-IO negation of O_APPEND */
> +#define RWF_NOAPPEND	((__force __kernel_rwf_t)0x00000020)
> +
>  /* mask of flags supported by the kernel */
>  #define RWF_SUPPORTED	(RWF_HIPRI | RWF_DSYNC | RWF_SYNC | RWF_NOWAIT |\
> -			 RWF_APPEND)
> +			 RWF_APPEND | RWF_NOAPPEND)
>  
>  #endif /* _UAPI_LINUX_FS_H */
```