summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/fs/cachefiles/interface.c (follow)
Commit message (Collapse)AuthorAgeFilesLines
* fscache: Pass object size in rather than calling back for itDavid Howells2018-04-061-3/+2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Pass the object size in to fscache_acquire_cookie() and fscache_write_page() rather than the netfs providing a callback by which it can be received. This makes it easier to update the size of the object when a new page is written that extends the object. The current object size is also passed by fscache to the check_aux function, obviating the need to store it in the aux data. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Anna Schumaker <anna.schumaker@netapp.com> Tested-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com>
* fscache: Attach the index key and aux data to the cookieDavid Howells2018-04-041-14/+24
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Attach copies of the index key and auxiliary data to the fscache cookie so that: (1) The callbacks to the netfs for this stuff can be eliminated. This can simplify things in the cache as the information is still available, even after the cache has relinquished the cookie. (2) Simplifies the locking requirements of accessing the information as we don't have to worry about the netfs object going away on us. (3) The cache can do lazy updating of the coherency information on disk. As long as the cache is flushed before reboot/poweroff, there's no need to update the coherency info on disk every time it changes. (4) Cookies can be hashed or put in a tree as the index key is easily available. This allows: (a) Checks for duplicate cookies can be made at the top fscache layer rather than down in the bowels of the cache backend. (b) Caching can be added to a netfs object that has a cookie if the cache is brought online after the netfs object is allocated. A certain amount of space is made in the cookie for inline copies of the data, but if it won't fit there, extra memory will be allocated for it. The downside of this is that live cache operation requires more memory. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Anna Schumaker <anna.schumaker@netapp.com> Tested-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com>
* fscache: Add tracepointsDavid Howells2018-04-041-4/+14
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Add some tracepoints to fscache: (*) fscache_cookie - Tracks a cookie's usage count. (*) fscache_netfs - Logs registration of a network filesystem, including the pointer to the cookie allocated. (*) fscache_acquire - Logs cookie acquisition. (*) fscache_relinquish - Logs cookie relinquishment. (*) fscache_enable - Logs enablement of a cookie. (*) fscache_disable - Logs disablement of a cookie. (*) fscache_osm - Tracks execution of states in the object state machine. and cachefiles: (*) cachefiles_ref - Tracks a cachefiles object's usage count. (*) cachefiles_lookup - Logs result of lookup_one_len(). (*) cachefiles_mkdir - Logs result of vfs_mkdir(). (*) cachefiles_create - Logs result of vfs_create(). (*) cachefiles_unlink - Logs calls to vfs_unlink(). (*) cachefiles_rename - Logs calls to vfs_rename(). (*) cachefiles_mark_active - Logs an object becoming active. (*) cachefiles_wait_active - Logs a wait for an old object to be destroyed. (*) cachefiles_mark_inactive - Logs an object becoming inactive. (*) cachefiles_mark_buried - Logs the burial of an object. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
* cachefiles: Fix attempt to read i_blocks after deleting file [ver #2]David Howells2016-09-281-1/+7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | An NULL-pointer dereference happens in cachefiles_mark_object_inactive() when it tries to read i_blocks so that it can tell the cachefilesd daemon how much space it's making available. The problem is that cachefiles_drop_object() calls cachefiles_mark_object_inactive() after calling cachefiles_delete_object() because the object being marked active staves off attempts to (re-)use the file at that filename until after it has been deleted. This means that d_inode is NULL by the time we come to try to access it. To fix the problem, have the caller of cachefiles_mark_object_inactive() supply the number of blocks freed up. Without this, the following oops may occur: BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000098 IP: [<ffffffffa06c5cc1>] cachefiles_mark_object_inactive+0x61/0xb0 [cachefiles] ... CPU: 11 PID: 527 Comm: kworker/u64:4 Tainted: G I ------------ 3.10.0-470.el7.x86_64 #1 Hardware name: Hewlett-Packard HP Z600 Workstation/0B54h, BIOS 786G4 v03.19 03/11/2011 Workqueue: fscache_object fscache_object_work_func [fscache] task: ffff880035edaf10 ti: ffff8800b77c0000 task.ti: ffff8800b77c0000 RIP: 0010:[<ffffffffa06c5cc1>] cachefiles_mark_object_inactive+0x61/0xb0 [cachefiles] RSP: 0018:ffff8800b77c3d70 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff8800bf6cc400 RCX: 0000000000000034 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ffff880090ffc710 RDI: ffff8800bf761ef8 RBP: ffff8800b77c3d88 R08: 2000000000000000 R09: 0090ffc710000000 R10: ff51005d2ff1c400 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff880090ffc600 R13: ffff8800bf6cc520 R14: ffff8800bf6cc400 R15: ffff8800bf6cc498 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8800bb8c0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 000000008005003b CR2: 0000000000000098 CR3: 00000000019ba000 CR4: 00000000000007e0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000ffff0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Stack: ffff880090ffc600 ffff8800bf6cc400 ffff8800867df140 ffff8800b77c3db0 ffffffffa06c48cb ffff880090ffc600 ffff880090ffc180 ffff880090ffc658 ffff8800b77c3df0 ffffffffa085d846 ffff8800a96b8150 ffff880090ffc600 Call Trace: [<ffffffffa06c48cb>] cachefiles_drop_object+0x6b/0xf0 [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa085d846>] fscache_drop_object+0xd6/0x1e0 [fscache] [<ffffffffa085d615>] fscache_object_work_func+0xa5/0x200 [fscache] [<ffffffff810a605b>] process_one_work+0x17b/0x470 [<ffffffff810a6e96>] worker_thread+0x126/0x410 [<ffffffff810a6d70>] ? rescuer_thread+0x460/0x460 [<ffffffff810ae64f>] kthread+0xcf/0xe0 [<ffffffff810ae580>] ? kthread_create_on_node+0x140/0x140 [<ffffffff81695418>] ret_from_fork+0x58/0x90 [<ffffffff810ae580>] ? kthread_create_on_node+0x140/0x140 The oopsing code shows: callq 0xffffffff810af6a0 <wake_up_bit> mov 0xf8(%r12),%rax mov 0x30(%rax),%rax mov 0x98(%rax),%rax <---- oops here lock add %rax,0x130(%rbx) where this is: d_backing_inode(object->dentry)->i_blocks Fixes: a5b3a80b899bda0f456f1246c4c5a1191ea01519 (CacheFiles: Provide read-and-reset release counters for cachefilesd) Reported-by: Jianhong Yin <jiyin@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* FS-Cache: make check_consistency callback return intYan, Zheng2016-06-011-1/+1
| | | | | | | | | | | __fscache_check_consistency() calls check_consistency() callback and return the callback's return value. But the return type of check_consistency() is bool. So __fscache_check_consistency() return 1 if the cache is inconsistent. This is inconsistent with the document. Signed-off-by: Yan, Zheng <zyan@redhat.com> Acked-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
* CacheFiles: Provide read-and-reset release counters for cachefilesdDavid Howells2016-02-011-9/+2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Provide read-and-reset objects- and blocks-released counters for cachefilesd to use to work out whether there's anything new that can be culled. One of the problems cachefilesd has is that if all the objects in the cache are pinned by inodes lying dormant in the kernel inode cache, there isn't anything for it to cull. In such a case, it just spins around walking the filesystem tree and scanning for something to cull. This eats up a lot of CPU time. By telling cachefilesd if there have been any releases, the daemon can sleep until there is the possibility of something to do. cachefilesd finds this information by the following means: (1) When the control fd is read, the kernel presents a list of values of interest. "freleased=N" and "breleased=N" are added to this list to indicate the number of files released and number of blocks released since the last read call. At this point the counters are reset. (2) POLLIN is signalled if the number of files released becomes greater than 0. Note that by 'released' it just means that the kernel has released its interest in those files for the moment, not necessarily that the files should be deleted from the cache. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* wrappers for ->i_mutex accessAl Viro2016-01-231-2/+2
| | | | | | | | | | | parallel to mutex_{lock,unlock,trylock,is_locked,lock_nested}, inode_foo(inode) being mutex_foo(&inode->i_mutex). Please, use those for access to ->i_mutex; over the coming cycle ->i_mutex will become rwsem, with ->lookup() done with it held only shared. Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* VFS: fs/cachefiles: d_backing_inode() annotationsDavid Howells2015-04-151-1/+1
| | | | | Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* VFS: Cachefiles should perform fs modifications on the top layer onlyDavid Howells2015-04-151-2/+2
| | | | | | | | Cachefiles should perform fs modifications (eg. vfs_unlink()) on the top layer only and should not attempt to alter the lower layer. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* Cachefiles: Fix up scripted S_ISDIR/S_ISREG/S_ISLNK conversionsDavid Howells2015-02-221-2/+2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fix up the following scripted S_ISDIR/S_ISREG/S_ISLNK conversions (or lack thereof) in cachefiles: (1) Cachefiles mostly wants to use d_can_lookup() rather than d_is_dir() as it doesn't want to deal with automounts in its cache. (2) Coccinelle didn't find S_IS* expressions in ASSERT() statements in cachefiles. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* CacheFiles: Handle object being killed before being set upDavid Howells2014-09-301-13/+20
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | If a cache object gets killed whilst in the process of being set up - for instance if the netfs relinquishes the cookie that the object is associated with - then the object's state machine will transit to the DROP_OBJECT state without necessarily going through the LOOKUP_OBJECT or CREATE_OBJECT states. This is a problem for CacheFiles because cachefiles_drop_object() assumes that object->dentry will be set upon reaching the DROP_OBJECT state and has an ASSERT() to that effect (see the oops below) - but object->dentry doesn't get set until the LOOKUP_OBJECT or CREATE_OBJECT states (and not always then if they fail). To fix this, just make the dentry cleanup in cachefiles_drop_object() conditional on the dentry actually being set and remove the assertion. CacheFiles: Assertion failed ------------[ cut here ]------------ kernel BUG at .../fs/cachefiles/namei.c:425! ... Workqueue: fscache_object fscache_object_work_func [fscache] ... RIP: ... cachefiles_delete_object+0xcd/0x110 [cachefiles] ... Call Trace: [<ffffffffa043280f>] ? cachefiles_drop_object+0xff/0x130 [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa02ac511>] ? fscache_drop_object+0xd1/0x1d0 [fscache] [<ffffffffa02ac697>] ? fscache_object_work_func+0x87/0x210 [fscache] [<ffffffff81080635>] ? process_one_work+0x155/0x450 [<ffffffff81081c44>] ? worker_thread+0x114/0x370 [<ffffffff81081b30>] ? manage_workers.isra.21+0x2c0/0x2c0 [<ffffffff81087fcc>] ? kthread+0xbc/0xe0 [<ffffffff81087f10>] ? flush_kthread_worker+0xa0/0xa0 [<ffffffff8150638c>] ? ret_from_fork+0x7c/0xb0 [<ffffffff81087f10>] ? flush_kthread_worker+0xa0/0xa0 Reported-by: Manuel Schölling <manuel.schoelling@gmx.de> Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com>
* fs/cachefiles: replace kerror by pr_errFabian Frederick2014-06-071-1/+1
| | | | | | | | | Also add pr_fmt in internal.h Signed-off-by: Fabian Frederick <fabf@skynet.be> Cc: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
* FS/CACHEFILES: convert printk to pr_foo()Fabian Frederick2014-06-071-2/+1
| | | | | | | Signed-off-by: Fabian Frederick <fabf@skynet.be> Cc: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
* Merge branch 'for-linus' of ↵Linus Torvalds2013-11-131-2/+2
|\ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs Pull vfs updates from Al Viro: "All kinds of stuff this time around; some more notable parts: - RCU'd vfsmounts handling - new primitives for coredump handling - files_lock is gone - Bruce's delegations handling series - exportfs fixes plus misc stuff all over the place" * 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs: (101 commits) ecryptfs: ->f_op is never NULL locks: break delegations on any attribute modification locks: break delegations on link locks: break delegations on rename locks: helper functions for delegation breaking locks: break delegations on unlink namei: minor vfs_unlink cleanup locks: implement delegations locks: introduce new FL_DELEG lock flag vfs: take i_mutex on renamed file vfs: rename I_MUTEX_QUOTA now that it's not used for quotas vfs: don't use PARENT/CHILD lock classes for non-directories vfs: pull ext4's double-i_mutex-locking into common code exportfs: fix quadratic behavior in filehandle lookup exportfs: better variable name exportfs: move most of reconnect_path to helper function exportfs: eliminate unused "noprogress" counter exportfs: stop retrying once we race with rename/remove exportfs: clear DISCONNECTED on all parents sooner exportfs: more detailed comment for path_reconnect ...
| * locks: break delegations on any attribute modificationJ. Bruce Fields2013-11-091-2/+2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | NFSv4 uses leases to guarantee that clients can cache metadata as well as data. Cc: Mikulas Patocka <mikulas@artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz> Cc: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Cc: Tyler Hicks <tyhicks@canonical.com> Cc: Dustin Kirkland <dustin.kirkland@gazzang.com> Acked-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: J. Bruce Fields <bfields@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* | FS-Cache: Provide the ability to enable/disable cookiesDavid Howells2013-09-271-1/+1
|/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Provide the ability to enable and disable fscache cookies. A disabled cookie will reject or ignore further requests to: Acquire a child cookie Invalidate and update backing objects Check the consistency of a backing object Allocate storage for backing page Read backing pages Write to backing pages but still allows: Checks/waits on the completion of already in-progress objects Uncaching of pages Relinquishment of cookies Two new operations are provided: (1) Disable a cookie: void fscache_disable_cookie(struct fscache_cookie *cookie, bool invalidate); If the cookie is not already disabled, this locks the cookie against other dis/enablement ops, marks the cookie as being disabled, discards or invalidates any backing objects and waits for cessation of activity on any associated object. This is a wrapper around a chunk split out of fscache_relinquish_cookie(), but it reinitialises the cookie such that it can be reenabled. All possible failures are handled internally. The caller should consider calling fscache_uncache_all_inode_pages() afterwards to make sure all page markings are cleared up. (2) Enable a cookie: void fscache_enable_cookie(struct fscache_cookie *cookie, bool (*can_enable)(void *data), void *data) If the cookie is not already enabled, this locks the cookie against other dis/enablement ops, invokes can_enable() and, if the cookie is not an index cookie, will begin the procedure of acquiring backing objects. The optional can_enable() function is passed the data argument and returns a ruling as to whether or not enablement should actually be permitted to begin. All possible failures are handled internally. The cookie will only be marked as enabled if provisional backing objects are allocated. A later patch will introduce these to NFS. Cookie enablement during nfs_open() is then contingent on i_writecount <= 0. can_enable() checks for a race between open(O_RDONLY) and open(O_WRONLY/O_RDWR). This simplifies NFS's cookie handling and allows us to get rid of open(O_RDONLY) accidentally introducing caching to an inode that's open for writing already. One operation has its API modified: (3) Acquire a cookie. struct fscache_cookie *fscache_acquire_cookie( struct fscache_cookie *parent, const struct fscache_cookie_def *def, void *netfs_data, bool enable); This now has an additional argument that indicates whether the requested cookie should be enabled by default. It doesn't need the can_enable() function because the caller must prevent multiple calls for the same netfs object and it doesn't need to take the enablement lock because no one else can get at the cookie before this returns. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com
* CacheFiles: Implement interface to check cache consistencyDavid Howells2013-09-061-0/+26
| | | | | | | | | | Implement the FS-Cache interface to check the consistency of a cache object in CacheFiles. Original-author: Hongyi Jia <jiayisuse@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> cc: Hongyi Jia <jiayisuse@gmail.com> cc: Milosz Tanski <milosz@adfin.com>
* cachefiles: remove unused macro list_to_page()Haicheng Li2013-06-191-2/+0
| | | | | | | Signed-off-by: Haicheng Li <haicheng.li@linux.intel.com> Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Tested-By: Milosz Tanski <milosz@adfin.com> Acked-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>
* FS-Cache: Simplify cookie retention for fscache_objects, fixing oopsDavid Howells2013-06-191-1/+10
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Simplify the way fscache cache objects retain their cookie. The way I implemented the cookie storage handling made synchronisation a pain (ie. the object state machine can't rely on the cookie actually still being there). Instead of the the object being detached from the cookie and the cookie being freed in __fscache_relinquish_cookie(), we defer both operations: (*) The detachment of the object from the list in the cookie now takes place in fscache_drop_object() and is thus governed by the object state machine (fscache_detach_from_cookie() has been removed). (*) The release of the cookie is now in fscache_object_destroy() - which is called by the cache backend just before it frees the object. This means that the fscache_cookie struct is now available to the cache all the way through from ->alloc_object() to ->drop_object() and ->put_object() - meaning that it's no longer necessary to take object->lock to guarantee access. However, __fscache_relinquish_cookie() doesn't wait for the object to go all the way through to destruction before letting the netfs proceed. That would massively slow down the netfs. Since __fscache_relinquish_cookie() leaves the cookie around, in must therefore break all attachments to the netfs - which includes ->def, ->netfs_data and any outstanding page read/writes. To handle this, struct fscache_cookie now has an n_active counter: (1) This starts off initialised to 1. (2) Any time the cache needs to get at the netfs data, it calls fscache_use_cookie() to increment it - if it is not zero. If it was zero, then access is not permitted. (3) When the cache has finished with the data, it calls fscache_unuse_cookie() to decrement it. This does a wake-up on it if it reaches 0. (4) __fscache_relinquish_cookie() decrements n_active and then waits for it to reach 0. The initialisation to 1 in step (1) ensures that we only get wake ups when we're trying to get rid of the cookie. This leaves __fscache_relinquish_cookie() a lot simpler. *** This fixes a problem in the current code whereby if fscache_invalidate() is followed sufficiently quickly by fscache_relinquish_cookie() then it is possible for __fscache_relinquish_cookie() to have detached the cookie from the object and cleared the pointer before a thread is dispatched to process the invalidation state in the object state machine. Since the pending write clearance was deferred to the invalidation state to make it asynchronous, we need to either wait in relinquishment for the stores tree to be cleared in the invalidation state or we need to handle the clearance in relinquishment. Further, if the relinquishment code does clear the tree, then the invalidation state need to make the clearance contingent on still having the cookie to hand (since that's where the tree is rooted) and we have to prevent the cookie from disappearing for the duration. This can lead to an oops like the following: BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 000000000000000c ... RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff8151023e>] _spin_lock+0xe/0x30 ... CR2: 000000000000000c ... ... Process kslowd002 (...) .... Call Trace: [<ffffffffa01c3278>] fscache_invalidate_writes+0x38/0xd0 [fscache] [<ffffffff810096f0>] ? __switch_to+0xd0/0x320 [<ffffffff8105e759>] ? find_busiest_queue+0x69/0x150 [<ffffffff8110ddd4>] ? slow_work_enqueue+0x104/0x180 [<ffffffffa01c1303>] fscache_object_slow_work_execute+0x5e3/0x9d0 [fscache] [<ffffffff81096b67>] ? bit_waitqueue+0x17/0xd0 [<ffffffff8110e233>] slow_work_execute+0x233/0x310 [<ffffffff8110e515>] slow_work_thread+0x205/0x360 [<ffffffff81096ca0>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x40 [<ffffffff8110e310>] ? slow_work_thread+0x0/0x360 [<ffffffff81096936>] kthread+0x96/0xa0 [<ffffffff8100c0ca>] child_rip+0xa/0x20 [<ffffffff810968a0>] ? kthread+0x0/0xa0 [<ffffffff8100c0c0>] ? child_rip+0x0/0x20 The parameter to fscache_invalidate_writes() was object->cookie which is NULL. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Tested-By: Milosz Tanski <milosz@adfin.com> Acked-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>
* FS-Cache: Fix object state machine to have separate work and wait statesDavid Howells2013-06-191-1/+1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fix object state machine to have separate work and wait states as that makes it easier to envision. There are now three kinds of state: (1) Work state. This is an execution state. No event processing is performed by a work state. The function attached to a work state returns a pointer indicating the next state to which the OSM should transition. Returning NO_TRANSIT repeats the current state, but goes back to the scheduler first. (2) Wait state. This is an event processing state. No execution is performed by a wait state. Wait states are just tables of "if event X occurs, clear it and transition to state Y". The dispatcher returns to the scheduler if none of the events in which the wait state has an interest are currently pending. (3) Out-of-band state. This is a special work state. Transitions to normal states can be overridden when an unexpected event occurs (eg. I/O error). Instead the dispatcher disables and clears the OOB event and transits to the specified work state. This then acts as an ordinary work state, though object->state points to the overridden destination. Returning NO_TRANSIT resumes the overridden transition. In addition, the states have names in their definitions, so there's no need for tables of state names. Further, the EV_REQUEUE event is no longer necessary as that is automatic for work states. Since the states are now separate structs rather than values in an enum, it's not possible to use comparisons other than (non-)equality between them, so use some object->flags to indicate what phase an object is in. The EV_RELEASE, EV_RETIRE and EV_WITHDRAW events have been squished into one (EV_KILL). An object flag now carries the information about retirement. Similarly, the RELEASING, RECYCLING and WITHDRAWING states have been merged into an KILL_OBJECT state and additional states have been added for handling waiting dependent objects (JUMPSTART_DEPS and KILL_DEPENDENTS). A state has also been added for synchronising with parent object initialisation (WAIT_FOR_PARENT) and another for initiating look up (PARENT_READY). Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Tested-By: Milosz Tanski <milosz@adfin.com> Acked-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>
* FS-Cache: Mark cancellation of in-progress operationDavid Howells2012-12-201-1/+1
| | | | | | | | Mark as cancelled an operation that is in progress rather than pending at the time it is cancelled, and call fscache_complete_op() to cancel an operation so that blocked ops can be started. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
* CacheFiles: Implement invalidationDavid Howells2012-12-201-0/+49
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Implement invalidation for CacheFiles. This is in two parts: (1) Provide an invalidation method (which just truncates the backing file). (2) Abort attempts to copy anything read from the backing file whilst invalidation is in progress. Question: CacheFiles uses truncation in a couple of places. It has been using notify_change() rather than sys_truncate() or something similar. This means it bypasses a bunch of checks and suchlike that it possibly should be making (security, file locking, lease breaking, vfsmount write). Should it be using vfs_truncate() as added by a preceding patch or should it use notify_write() and assume that anyone poking around in the cache files on disk gets everything they deserve? Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
* CacheFiles: Downgrade the requirements passed to the allocatorDavid Howells2012-12-201-4/+4
| | | | | | | | Downgrade the requirements passed to the allocator in the gfp flags parameter. FS-Cache/CacheFiles can handle OOM conditions simply by aborting the attempt to store an object or a page in the cache. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
* fs: move code out of buffer.cAl Viro2012-01-041-1/+0
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Move invalidate_bdev, block_sync_page into fs/block_dev.c. Export kill_bdev as well, so brd doesn't have to open code it. Reduce buffer_head.h requirement accordingly. Removed a rather large comment from invalidate_bdev, as it looked a bit obsolete to bother moving. The small comment replacing it says enough. Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de> Cc: Al Viro <viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* Fix common misspellingsLucas De Marchi2011-03-311-1/+1
| | | | | | Fixes generated by 'codespell' and manually reviewed. Signed-off-by: Lucas De Marchi <lucas.demarchi@profusion.mobi>
* include cleanup: Update gfp.h and slab.h includes to prepare for breaking ↵Tejun Heo2010-03-301-0/+1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | implicit slab.h inclusion from percpu.h percpu.h is included by sched.h and module.h and thus ends up being included when building most .c files. percpu.h includes slab.h which in turn includes gfp.h making everything defined by the two files universally available and complicating inclusion dependencies. percpu.h -> slab.h dependency is about to be removed. Prepare for this change by updating users of gfp and slab facilities include those headers directly instead of assuming availability. As this conversion needs to touch large number of source files, the following script is used as the basis of conversion. http://userweb.kernel.org/~tj/misc/slabh-sweep.py The script does the followings. * Scan files for gfp and slab usages and update includes such that only the necessary includes are there. ie. if only gfp is used, gfp.h, if slab is used, slab.h. * When the script inserts a new include, it looks at the include blocks and try to put the new include such that its order conforms to its surrounding. It's put in the include block which contains core kernel includes, in the same order that the rest are ordered - alphabetical, Christmas tree, rev-Xmas-tree or at the end if there doesn't seem to be any matching order. * If the script can't find a place to put a new include (mostly because the file doesn't have fitting include block), it prints out an error message indicating which .h file needs to be added to the file. The conversion was done in the following steps. 1. The initial automatic conversion of all .c files updated slightly over 4000 files, deleting around 700 includes and adding ~480 gfp.h and ~3000 slab.h inclusions. The script emitted errors for ~400 files. 2. Each error was manually checked. Some didn't need the inclusion, some needed manual addition while adding it to implementation .h or embedding .c file was more appropriate for others. This step added inclusions to around 150 files. 3. The script was run again and the output was compared to the edits from #2 to make sure no file was left behind. 4. Several build tests were done and a couple of problems were fixed. e.g. lib/decompress_*.c used malloc/free() wrappers around slab APIs requiring slab.h to be added manually. 5. The script was run on all .h files but without automatically editing them as sprinkling gfp.h and slab.h inclusions around .h files could easily lead to inclusion dependency hell. Most gfp.h inclusion directives were ignored as stuff from gfp.h was usually wildly available and often used in preprocessor macros. Each slab.h inclusion directive was examined and added manually as necessary. 6. percpu.h was updated not to include slab.h. 7. Build test were done on the following configurations and failures were fixed. CONFIG_GCOV_KERNEL was turned off for all tests (as my distributed build env didn't work with gcov compiles) and a few more options had to be turned off depending on archs to make things build (like ipr on powerpc/64 which failed due to missing writeq). * x86 and x86_64 UP and SMP allmodconfig and a custom test config. * powerpc and powerpc64 SMP allmodconfig * sparc and sparc64 SMP allmodconfig * ia64 SMP allmodconfig * s390 SMP allmodconfig * alpha SMP allmodconfig * um on x86_64 SMP allmodconfig 8. percpu.h modifications were reverted so that it could be applied as a separate patch and serve as bisection point. Given the fact that I had only a couple of failures from tests on step 6, I'm fairly confident about the coverage of this conversion patch. If there is a breakage, it's likely to be something in one of the arch headers which should be easily discoverable easily on most builds of the specific arch. Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org> Guess-its-ok-by: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux-foundation.org> Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com> Cc: Lee Schermerhorn <Lee.Schermerhorn@hp.com>
* CacheFiles: Don't log lookup/create failing with ENOBUFSDavid Howells2009-11-191-2/+3
| | | | | | | | | | Don't log the CacheFiles lookup/create object routined failing with ENOBUFS as under high memory load or high cache load they can do this quite a lot. This error simply means that the requested object cannot be created on disk due to lack of space, or due to failure of the backing filesystem to find sufficient resources. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
* CacheFiles: Catch an overly long wait for an old active objectDavid Howells2009-11-191-2/+4
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Catch an overly long wait for an old, dying active object when we want to replace it with a new one. The probability is that all the slow-work threads are hogged, and the delete can't get a look in. What we do instead is: (1) if there's nothing in the slow work queue, we sleep until either the dying object has finished dying or there is something in the slow work queue behind which we can queue our object. (2) if there is something in the slow work queue, we return ETIMEDOUT to fscache_lookup_object(), which then puts us back on the slow work queue, presumably behind the deletion that we're blocked by. We are then deferred for a while until we work our way back through the queue - without blocking a slow-work thread unnecessarily. A backtrace similar to the following may appear in the log without this patch: INFO: task kslowd004:5711 blocked for more than 120 seconds. "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. kslowd004 D 0000000000000000 0 5711 2 0x00000080 ffff88000340bb80 0000000000000046 ffff88002550d000 0000000000000000 ffff88002550d000 0000000000000007 ffff88000340bfd8 ffff88002550d2a8 000000000000ddf0 00000000000118c0 00000000000118c0 ffff88002550d2a8 Call Trace: [<ffffffff81058e21>] ? trace_hardirqs_on+0xd/0xf [<ffffffffa011c4d8>] ? cachefiles_wait_bit+0x0/0xd [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa011c4e1>] cachefiles_wait_bit+0x9/0xd [cachefiles] [<ffffffff81353153>] __wait_on_bit+0x43/0x76 [<ffffffff8111ae39>] ? ext3_xattr_get+0x1ec/0x270 [<ffffffff813531ef>] out_of_line_wait_on_bit+0x69/0x74 [<ffffffffa011c4d8>] ? cachefiles_wait_bit+0x0/0xd [cachefiles] [<ffffffff8104c125>] ? wake_bit_function+0x0/0x2e [<ffffffffa011bc79>] cachefiles_mark_object_active+0x203/0x23b [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa011c209>] cachefiles_walk_to_object+0x558/0x827 [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa011a429>] cachefiles_lookup_object+0xac/0x12a [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa00aa1e9>] fscache_lookup_object+0x1c7/0x214 [fscache] [<ffffffffa00aafc5>] fscache_object_state_machine+0xa5/0x52d [fscache] [<ffffffffa00ab4ac>] fscache_object_slow_work_execute+0x5f/0xa0 [fscache] [<ffffffff81082093>] slow_work_execute+0x18f/0x2d1 [<ffffffff8108239a>] slow_work_thread+0x1c5/0x308 [<ffffffff8104c0f1>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x34 [<ffffffff810821d5>] ? slow_work_thread+0x0/0x308 [<ffffffff8104be91>] kthread+0x7a/0x82 [<ffffffff8100beda>] child_rip+0xa/0x20 [<ffffffff8100b87c>] ? restore_args+0x0/0x30 [<ffffffff8104be17>] ? kthread+0x0/0x82 [<ffffffff8100bed0>] ? child_rip+0x0/0x20 1 lock held by kslowd004/5711: #0: (&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#7/1){+.+.+.}, at: [<ffffffffa011be64>] cachefiles_walk_to_object+0x1b3/0x827 [cachefiles] Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
* CacheFiles: Don't write a full page if there's only a partial page to cacheDavid Howells2009-11-191-3/+17
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | cachefiles_write_page() writes a full page to the backing file for the last page of the netfs file, even if the netfs file's last page is only a partial page. This causes the EOF on the backing file to be extended beyond the EOF of the netfs, and thus the backing file will be truncated by cachefiles_attr_changed() called from cachefiles_lookup_object(). So we need to limit the write we make to the backing file on that last page such that it doesn't push the EOF too far. Also, if a backing file that has a partial page at the end is expanded, we discard the partial page and refetch it on the basis that we then have a hole in the file with invalid data, and should the power go out... A better way to deal with this could be to record a note that the partial page contains invalid data until the correct data is written into it. This isn't a problem for netfs's that discard the whole backing file if the file size changes (such as NFS). Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
* FS-Cache: Allow the current state of all objects to be dumpedDavid Howells2009-11-191-0/+1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Allow the current state of all fscache objects to be dumped by doing: cat /proc/fs/fscache/objects By default, all objects and all fields will be shown. This can be restricted by adding a suitable key to one of the caller's keyrings (such as the session keyring): keyctl add user fscache:objlist "<restrictions>" @s The <restrictions> are: K Show hexdump of object key (don't show if not given) A Show hexdump of object aux data (don't show if not given) And paired restrictions: C Show objects that have a cookie c Show objects that don't have a cookie B Show objects that are busy b Show objects that aren't busy W Show objects that have pending writes w Show objects that don't have pending writes R Show objects that have outstanding reads r Show objects that don't have outstanding reads S Show objects that have slow work queued s Show objects that don't have slow work queued If neither side of a restriction pair is given, then both are implied. For example: keyctl add user fscache:objlist KB @s shows objects that are busy, and lists their object keys, but does not dump their auxiliary data. It also implies "CcWwRrSs", but as 'B' is given, 'b' is not implied. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
* enforce ->sync_fs is only called for rw superblockChristoph Hellwig2009-06-121-0/+2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Make sure a superblock really is writeable by checking MS_RDONLY under s_umount. sync_filesystems needed some re-arragement for that, but all but one sync_filesystem caller had the correct locking already so that we could add that check there. cachefiles grew s_umount locking. I've also added a WARN_ON to sync_filesystem to assert this for future callers. Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* vfs: Rename fsync_super() to sync_filesystem() (version 4)Jan Kara2009-06-121-1/+1
| | | | | | | | Rename the function so that it better describe what it really does. Also remove the unnecessary include of buffer_head.h. Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
* CacheFiles: A cache that backs onto a mounted filesystemDavid Howells2009-04-031-0/+449
Add an FS-Cache cache-backend that permits a mounted filesystem to be used as a backing store for the cache. CacheFiles uses a userspace daemon to do some of the cache management - such as reaping stale nodes and culling. This is called cachefilesd and lives in /sbin. The source for the daemon can be downloaded from: http://people.redhat.com/~dhowells/cachefs/cachefilesd.c And an example configuration from: http://people.redhat.com/~dhowells/cachefs/cachefilesd.conf The filesystem and data integrity of the cache are only as good as those of the filesystem providing the backing services. Note that CacheFiles does not attempt to journal anything since the journalling interfaces of the various filesystems are very specific in nature. CacheFiles creates a misc character device - "/dev/cachefiles" - that is used to communication with the daemon. Only one thing may have this open at once, and whilst it is open, a cache is at least partially in existence. The daemon opens this and sends commands down it to control the cache. CacheFiles is currently limited to a single cache. CacheFiles attempts to maintain at least a certain percentage of free space on the filesystem, shrinking the cache by culling the objects it contains to make space if necessary - see the "Cache Culling" section. This means it can be placed on the same medium as a live set of data, and will expand to make use of spare space and automatically contract when the set of data requires more space. ============ REQUIREMENTS ============ The use of CacheFiles and its daemon requires the following features to be available in the system and in the cache filesystem: - dnotify. - extended attributes (xattrs). - openat() and friends. - bmap() support on files in the filesystem (FIBMAP ioctl). - The use of bmap() to detect a partial page at the end of the file. It is strongly recommended that the "dir_index" option is enabled on Ext3 filesystems being used as a cache. ============= CONFIGURATION ============= The cache is configured by a script in /etc/cachefilesd.conf. These commands set up cache ready for use. The following script commands are available: (*) brun <N>% (*) bcull <N>% (*) bstop <N>% (*) frun <N>% (*) fcull <N>% (*) fstop <N>% Configure the culling limits. Optional. See the section on culling The defaults are 7% (run), 5% (cull) and 1% (stop) respectively. The commands beginning with a 'b' are file space (block) limits, those beginning with an 'f' are file count limits. (*) dir <path> Specify the directory containing the root of the cache. Mandatory. (*) tag <name> Specify a tag to FS-Cache to use in distinguishing multiple caches. Optional. The default is "CacheFiles". (*) debug <mask> Specify a numeric bitmask to control debugging in the kernel module. Optional. The default is zero (all off). The following values can be OR'd into the mask to collect various information: 1 Turn on trace of function entry (_enter() macros) 2 Turn on trace of function exit (_leave() macros) 4 Turn on trace of internal debug points (_debug()) This mask can also be set through sysfs, eg: echo 5 >/sys/modules/cachefiles/parameters/debug ================== STARTING THE CACHE ================== The cache is started by running the daemon. The daemon opens the cache device, configures the cache and tells it to begin caching. At that point the cache binds to fscache and the cache becomes live. The daemon is run as follows: /sbin/cachefilesd [-d]* [-s] [-n] [-f <configfile>] The flags are: (*) -d Increase the debugging level. This can be specified multiple times and is cumulative with itself. (*) -s Send messages to stderr instead of syslog. (*) -n Don't daemonise and go into background. (*) -f <configfile> Use an alternative configuration file rather than the default one. =============== THINGS TO AVOID =============== Do not mount other things within the cache as this will cause problems. The kernel module contains its own very cut-down path walking facility that ignores mountpoints, but the daemon can't avoid them. Do not create, rename or unlink files and directories in the cache whilst the cache is active, as this may cause the state to become uncertain. Renaming files in the cache might make objects appear to be other objects (the filename is part of the lookup key). Do not change or remove the extended attributes attached to cache files by the cache as this will cause the cache state management to get confused. Do not create files or directories in the cache, lest the cache get confused or serve incorrect data. Do not chmod files in the cache. The module creates things with minimal permissions to prevent random users being able to access them directly. ============= CACHE CULLING ============= The cache may need culling occasionally to make space. This involves discarding objects from the cache that have been used less recently than anything else. Culling is based on the access time of data objects. Empty directories are culled if not in use. Cache culling is done on the basis of the percentage of blocks and the percentage of files available in the underlying filesystem. There are six "limits": (*) brun (*) frun If the amount of free space and the number of available files in the cache rises above both these limits, then culling is turned off. (*) bcull (*) fcull If the amount of available space or the number of available files in the cache falls below either of these limits, then culling is started. (*) bstop (*) fstop If the amount of available space or the number of available files in the cache falls below either of these limits, then no further allocation of disk space or files is permitted until culling has raised things above these limits again. These must be configured thusly: 0 <= bstop < bcull < brun < 100 0 <= fstop < fcull < frun < 100 Note that these are percentages of available space and available files, and do _not_ appear as 100 minus the percentage displayed by the "df" program. The userspace daemon scans the cache to build up a table of cullable objects. These are then culled in least recently used order. A new scan of the cache is started as soon as space is made in the table. Objects will be skipped if their atimes have changed or if the kernel module says it is still using them. =============== CACHE STRUCTURE =============== The CacheFiles module will create two directories in the directory it was given: (*) cache/ (*) graveyard/ The active cache objects all reside in the first directory. The CacheFiles kernel module moves any retired or culled objects that it can't simply unlink to the graveyard from which the daemon will actually delete them. The daemon uses dnotify to monitor the graveyard directory, and will delete anything that appears therein. The module represents index objects as directories with the filename "I..." or "J...". Note that the "cache/" directory is itself a special index. Data objects are represented as files if they have no children, or directories if they do. Their filenames all begin "D..." or "E...". If represented as a directory, data objects will have a file in the directory called "data" that actually holds the data. Special objects are similar to data objects, except their filenames begin "S..." or "T...". If an object has children, then it will be represented as a directory. Immediately in the representative directory are a collection of directories named for hash values of the child object keys with an '@' prepended. Into this directory, if possible, will be placed the representations of the child objects: INDEX INDEX INDEX DATA FILES ========= ========== ================================= ================ cache/@4a/I03nfs/@30/Ji000000000000000--fHg8hi8400 cache/@4a/I03nfs/@30/Ji000000000000000--fHg8hi8400/@75/Es0g000w...DB1ry cache/@4a/I03nfs/@30/Ji000000000000000--fHg8hi8400/@75/Es0g000w...N22ry cache/@4a/I03nfs/@30/Ji000000000000000--fHg8hi8400/@75/Es0g000w...FP1ry If the key is so long that it exceeds NAME_MAX with the decorations added on to it, then it will be cut into pieces, the first few of which will be used to make a nest of directories, and the last one of which will be the objects inside the last directory. The names of the intermediate directories will have '+' prepended: J1223/@23/+xy...z/+kl...m/Epqr Note that keys are raw data, and not only may they exceed NAME_MAX in size, they may also contain things like '/' and NUL characters, and so they may not be suitable for turning directly into a filename. To handle this, CacheFiles will use a suitably printable filename directly and "base-64" encode ones that aren't directly suitable. The two versions of object filenames indicate the encoding: OBJECT TYPE PRINTABLE ENCODED =============== =============== =============== Index "I..." "J..." Data "D..." "E..." Special "S..." "T..." Intermediate directories are always "@" or "+" as appropriate. Each object in the cache has an extended attribute label that holds the object type ID (required to distinguish special objects) and the auxiliary data from the netfs. The latter is used to detect stale objects in the cache and update or retire them. Note that CacheFiles will erase from the cache any file it doesn't recognise or any file of an incorrect type (such as a FIFO file or a device file). ========================== SECURITY MODEL AND SELINUX ========================== CacheFiles is implemented to deal properly with the LSM security features of the Linux kernel and the SELinux facility. One of the problems that CacheFiles faces is that it is generally acting on behalf of a process, and running in that process's context, and that includes a security context that is not appropriate for accessing the cache - either because the files in the cache are inaccessible to that process, or because if the process creates a file in the cache, that file may be inaccessible to other processes. The way CacheFiles works is to temporarily change the security context (fsuid, fsgid and actor security label) that the process acts as - without changing the security context of the process when it the target of an operation performed by some other process (so signalling and suchlike still work correctly). When the CacheFiles module is asked to bind to its cache, it: (1) Finds the security label attached to the root cache directory and uses that as the security label with which it will create files. By default, this is: cachefiles_var_t (2) Finds the security label of the process which issued the bind request (presumed to be the cachefilesd daemon), which by default will be: cachefilesd_t and asks LSM to supply a security ID as which it should act given the daemon's label. By default, this will be: cachefiles_kernel_t SELinux transitions the daemon's security ID to the module's security ID based on a rule of this form in the policy. type_transition <daemon's-ID> kernel_t : process <module's-ID>; For instance: type_transition cachefilesd_t kernel_t : process cachefiles_kernel_t; The module's security ID gives it permission to create, move and remove files and directories in the cache, to find and access directories and files in the cache, to set and access extended attributes on cache objects, and to read and write files in the cache. The daemon's security ID gives it only a very restricted set of permissions: it may scan directories, stat files and erase files and directories. It may not read or write files in the cache, and so it is precluded from accessing the data cached therein; nor is it permitted to create new files in the cache. There are policy source files available in: http://people.redhat.com/~dhowells/fscache/cachefilesd-0.8.tar.bz2 and later versions. In that tarball, see the files: cachefilesd.te cachefilesd.fc cachefilesd.if They are built and installed directly by the RPM. If a non-RPM based system is being used, then copy the above files to their own directory and run: make -f /usr/share/selinux/devel/Makefile semodule -i cachefilesd.pp You will need checkpolicy and selinux-policy-devel installed prior to the build. By default, the cache is located in /var/fscache, but if it is desirable that it should be elsewhere, than either the above policy files must be altered, or an auxiliary policy must be installed to label the alternate location of the cache. For instructions on how to add an auxiliary policy to enable the cache to be located elsewhere when SELinux is in enforcing mode, please see: /usr/share/doc/cachefilesd-*/move-cache.txt When the cachefilesd rpm is installed; alternatively, the document can be found in the sources. ================== A NOTE ON SECURITY ================== CacheFiles makes use of the split security in the task_struct. It allocates its own task_security structure, and redirects current->act_as to point to it when it acts on behalf of another process, in that process's context. The reason it does this is that it calls vfs_mkdir() and suchlike rather than bypassing security and calling inode ops directly. Therefore the VFS and LSM may deny the CacheFiles access to the cache data because under some circumstances the caching code is running in the security context of whatever process issued the original syscall on the netfs. Furthermore, should CacheFiles create a file or directory, the security parameters with that object is created (UID, GID, security label) would be derived from that process that issued the system call, thus potentially preventing other processes from accessing the cache - including CacheFiles's cache management daemon (cachefilesd). What is required is to temporarily override the security of the process that issued the system call. We can't, however, just do an in-place change of the security data as that affects the process as an object, not just as a subject. This means it may lose signals or ptrace events for example, and affects what the process looks like in /proc. So CacheFiles makes use of a logical split in the security between the objective security (task->sec) and the subjective security (task->act_as). The objective security holds the intrinsic security properties of a process and is never overridden. This is what appears in /proc, and is what is used when a process is the target of an operation by some other process (SIGKILL for example). The subjective security holds the active security properties of a process, and may be overridden. This is not seen externally, and is used whan a process acts upon another object, for example SIGKILLing another process or opening a file. LSM hooks exist that allow SELinux (or Smack or whatever) to reject a request for CacheFiles to run in a context of a specific security label, or to create files and directories with another security label. This documentation is added by the patch to: Documentation/filesystems/caching/cachefiles.txt Signed-Off-By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com> Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>