On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 6:30 PM Yu Kuai [off-list ref] wrote:

From: Yu Kuai <redacted>

Commit 5792a2856a63 ("[PATCH] md: avoid a deadlock when removing a device
from an md array via sysfs") delays the deletion of rdev, however, this
introduces a window that rdev can be added again while the deletion is
not done yet, and sysfs will complain about duplicate filename.

Follow up patches try to fix this problem by flushing workqueue, however,
flush_rdev_wq() is just dead code, the progress in
md_kick_rdev_from_array():

1) list_del_rcu(&rdev->same_set);
2) synchronize_rcu();
3) queue_work(md_rdev_misc_wq, &rdev->del_work);

So in flush_rdev_wq(), if rdev is found in the list, work_pending() can
never pass, in the meantime, if work is queued, then rdev can never be
found in the list.

flush_rdev_wq() can be replaced by flush_workqueue() directly, however,
this approach is not good:
- the workqueue is global, this synchronization for all raid disks is
  not necessary.
- flush_workqueue can't be called under 'reconfig_mutex', there is still
  a small window between flush_workqueue() and mddev_lock() that other
  contexts can queue new work, hence the problem is not solved completely.

sysfs already has apis to support delete itself through writer, and
these apis, specifically sysfs_break/unbreak_active_protection(), is used
to support deleting rdev synchronously. Therefore, the above commit can be
reverted, and sysfs duplicate filename can be avoided.

A new mdadm regression test is proposed as well([1]).

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-raid/20230428062845.1975462-1-yukuai1@huaweicloud.com/ (local)
Fixes: 5792a2856a63 ("[PATCH] md: avoid a deadlock when removing a device from an md array via sysfs")
Signed-off-by: Yu Kuai <redacted>

Thanks for the fix! I made the following changes and applied it
to md-next:

1. remove md_rdev->del_work, which is not used any more;
2. change list_empty_safe to list_empty protected by the mutex, as
   list_empty_safe doesn't seem safe here.

Please let me know if either change doesn't make sense.

Thanks,
Song