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
b0140891a8