On 2019-11-13, Al Viro [off-list ref] wrote:

On Tue, Nov 05, 2019 at 08:05:50PM +1100, Aleksa Sarai wrote:

quoted

One other possible alternative (which previous versions of this patch
used) would be to check with path_is_under() if there was a racing
rename or mount (after re-taking the relevant seqlocks). While this does
work, it results in possible O(n*m) behaviour if there are many renames
or mounts occuring *anywhere on the system*.

BTW, do you realize that open-by-fhandle (or working nfsd, for that matter)
will trigger arseloads of write_seqlock(&rename_lock) simply on d_splice_alias()
bringing disconnected subtrees in contact with parent?

I wasn't aware of that -- that makes path_is_under() even less viable.
I'll reword it to be clearer that path_is_under() isn't a good idea and
why we went with -EAGAIN over an in-kernel retry.

-- 
Aleksa Sarai
Senior Software Engineer (Containers)
SUSE Linux GmbH
<https://www.cyphar.com/>