ode is only really safe for directories (as we know that directories only have one link). For directories, the caller of d_splice_alias will be holding i_mutex on the (unique) parent so there is no room for a race. A consequence of this is that a non-directory will never benefit from being spliced into a pre-exisiting dentry, but that isn't a problem. It is perfectly OK for a non-directory to have multiple dentries, some anonymous, some not. And the comment for d_splice_alias says that it only happens for directories anyway. Signed-off-by: Neil Brown Cc: Christoph Hellwig Cc: Al Viro Cc: Dipankar Sarma Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds ’