md: Fix race when creating a new md device.

There is a race when creating an md device by opening /dev/mdXX.

If two processes do this at much the same time they will follow the
call path
  __blkdev_get -> get_gendisk -> kobj_lookup

The first will call
  -> md_probe -> md_alloc -> add_disk -> blk_register_region

and the race happens when the second gets to kobj_lookup after
add_disk has called blk_register_region but before it returns to
md_alloc.

In the case the second will not call md_probe (as the probe is already
done) but will get a handle on the gendisk, return to __blkdev_get
which will then call md_open (via the ->open) pointer.

As mddev->gendisk hasn't been set yet, md_open will think something is
wrong an return with ERESTARTSYS.

This can loop endlessly while the first thread makes no progress
through add_disk.  Nothing is blocking it, but due to scheduler
behaviour it doesn't get a turn.
So this is essentially a live-lock.

We fix this by simply moving the assignment to mddev->gendisk before
the call the add_disk() so md_open doesn't get confused.
Also move blk_queue_flush earlier because add_disk should be as late
as possible.

To make sure that md_open doesn't complete until md_alloc has done all
that is needed, we take mddev->open_mutex during the last part of
md_alloc.  md_open will wait for this.

This can cause a lock-up on boot so Cc:ing for stable.
For 2.6.36 and earlier a different patch will be needed as the
'blk_queue_flush' call isn't there.

Signed-off-by: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
Reported-by: Thomas Jarosch <thomas.jarosch@intra2net.com>
Tested-by: Thomas Jarosch <thomas.jarosch@intra2net.com>
Cc: stable@kernel.org

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/drivers/md/md.c b/drivers/md/md.c
index 7d6f7f1..4a4c0f8 100644
--- a/drivers/md/md.c
+++ b/drivers/md/md.c
@@ -4347,13 +4347,19 @@ static int md_alloc(dev_t dev, char *name)
 	disk->fops = &md_fops;
 	disk->private_data = mddev;
 	disk->queue = mddev->queue;
+	blk_queue_flush(mddev->queue, REQ_FLUSH | REQ_FUA);
 	/* Allow extended partitions.  This makes the
 	 * 'mdp' device redundant, but we can't really
 	 * remove it now.
 	 */
 	disk->flags |= GENHD_FL_EXT_DEVT;
-	add_disk(disk);
 	mddev->gendisk = disk;
+	/* As soon as we call add_disk(), another thread could get
+	 * through to md_open, so make sure it doesn't get too far
+	 */
+	mutex_lock(&mddev->open_mutex);
+	add_disk(disk);
+
 	error = kobject_init_and_add(&mddev->kobj, &md_ktype,
 				     &disk_to_dev(disk)->kobj, "%s", "md");
 	if (error) {
@@ -4367,8 +4373,7 @@ static int md_alloc(dev_t dev, char *name)
 	if (mddev->kobj.sd &&
 	    sysfs_create_group(&mddev->kobj, &md_bitmap_group))
 		printk(KERN_DEBUG "pointless warning\n");
-
-	blk_queue_flush(mddev->queue, REQ_FLUSH | REQ_FUA);
+	mutex_unlock(&mddev->open_mutex);
  abort:
 	mutex_unlock(&disks_mutex);
 	if (!error && mddev->kobj.sd) {