attempt which will end up failing could interfere other legit O_EXCL open attempts. ie. unconfirmed open attempts can fail others. This patch resolves the problem by introducing claiming block which is started by bd_start_claiming() and terminated either by bd_claim() or bd_abort_claiming(). bd_claim() from inside a claiming block is guaranteed to succeed and once a claiming block is started, other bd_start_claiming() or bd_claim() attempts block till the current claiming block is terminated. bd_claim() can still be used standalone although now it always synchronizes against claiming blocks, so the existing users will keep working without any change. blkdev_open() and open_bdev_exclusive() are converted to use claiming blocks so that exclusive open attempts from these functions don't interfere with the existing exclusive open. This problem was discovered while investigating bko#15403. https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15403 The burning problem itself can be resolved by updating userspace probing tools to always open w/ O_EXCL. Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo Reported-by: Matthias-Christian Ott Cc: Kay Sievers Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe 8