the ntfs volume.  This locks the inode (I_LOCK) then calls
write-inode -> ntfs_write_inode -> map_mft_record() -> read_cache_page() of
the page (in page cache of table of inodes $MFT, inode 0) containing the
on-disk inode.  This page has PageUptodate() clear because of Process 1
(see above) so read_cache_page() blocks when tries to take the page lock
for the page so it can call ntfs_read_page().

Thus Process 1 is holding the page lock on the page containing the on-disk
inode X and it is waiting on the inode X to be unlocked in ifind() so it
can write the page out and then unlock the page.

And Process 2 is holding the inode lock on inode X and is waiting for the
page to be unlocked so it can call ntfs_readpage() or discover that
Process 1 set PageUptodate() again and use the page.

Thus we have a deadlock due to ifind() waiting on the inode lock.

The only sensible solution: NTFS does not care whether the VFS inode is
locked or not when it calls ilookup5() (it doesn't use the VFS inode at
all, it just uses it to find the corresponding ntfs_inode which is of
course attached to the VFS inode (both are one single struct); and it uses
the ntfs_inode which is subject to its own locking so I_LOCK is irrelevant)
hence we want a modified ilookup5_nowait() which is the same as ilookup5()
but it does not wait on the inode lock.

Without such functionality I would have to keep my own ntfs_inode cache in
the NTFS driver just so I can find ntfs_inodes independent of their VFS
inodes which would be slow, memory and cpu cycle wasting, and incredibly
stupid given the icache already exists in the VFS.

Below is a patch that does the ilookup5_nowait() implementation in
fs/inode.c and exports it.

ilookup5_nowait.diff:

Introduce ilookup5_nowait() which is basically the same as ilookup5() but
it does not wait on the inode's lock (i.e. it omits the wait_on_inode()
done in ifind()).

This is needed to avoid a nasty deadlock in NTFS.

Signed-off-by: Anton Altaparmakov <aia21@cantab.net>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
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