kernel/linux.git/fs/fs-writeback.c, branch v6.1.168

writeback: fix 100% CPU usage when dirtytime_expire_interval is 0

2026-02-06T15:44:25+00:00

[ Upstream commit 543467d6fe97e27e22a26e367fda972dbefebbff ] When vm.dirtytime_expire_seconds is set to 0, wakeup_dirtytime_writeback() schedules delayed work with a delay of 0, causing immediate execution. The function then reschedules itself with 0 delay again, creating an infinite busy loop that causes 100% kworker CPU usage. Fix by: - Only scheduling delayed work in wakeup_dirtytime_writeback() when dirtytime_expire_interval is non-zero - Cancelling the delayed work in dirtytime_interval_handler() when the interval is set to 0 - Adding a guard in start_dirtytime_writeback() for defensive coding Tested by booting kernel in QEMU with virtme-ng: - Before fix: kworker CPU spikes to ~73% - After fix: CPU remains at normal levels - Setting interval back to non-zero correctly resumes writeback Fixes: a2f4870697a5 ("fs: make sure the timestamps for lazytime inodes eventually get written") Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Closes: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=220227 Signed-off-by: Laveesh Bansal Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260106145059.543282-2-laveeshb@laveeshbansal.com Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner [ adapted system_percpu_wq to system_wq for the workqueue used in dirtytime_interval_handler() ] Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

writeback: Avoid excessively long inode switching times

2025-10-19T14:23:22+00:00

[ Upstream commit 9a6ebbdbd41235ea3bc0c4f39e2076599b8113cc ] With lazytime mount option enabled we can be switching many dirty inodes on cgroup exit to the parent cgroup. The numbers observed in practice when systemd slice of a large cron job exits can easily reach hundreds of thousands or millions. The logic in inode_do_switch_wbs() which sorts the inode into appropriate place in b_dirty list of the target wb however has linear complexity in the number of dirty inodes thus overall time complexity of switching all the inodes is quadratic leading to workers being pegged for hours consuming 100% of the CPU and switching inodes to the parent wb. Simple reproducer of the issue: FILES=10000 # Filesystem mounted with lazytime mount option MNT=/mnt/ echo "Creating files and switching timestamps" for (( j = 0; j < 50; j ++ )); do mkdir $MNT/dir$j for (( i = 0; i < $FILES; i++ )); do echo "foo" >$MNT/dir$j/file$i done touch -a -t 202501010000 $MNT/dir$j/file* done wait echo "Syncing and flushing" sync echo 3 >/proc/sys/vm/drop_caches echo "Reading all files from a cgroup" mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/unified/mycg1 || exit echo $$ >/sys/fs/cgroup/unified/mycg1/cgroup.procs || exit for (( j = 0; j < 50; j ++ )); do cat /mnt/dir$j/file* >/dev/null & done wait echo "Switching wbs" # Now rmdir the cgroup after the script exits We need to maintain b_dirty list ordering to keep writeback happy so instead of sorting inode into appropriate place just append it at the end of the list and clobber dirtied_time_when. This may result in inode writeback starting later after cgroup switch however cgroup switches are rare so it shouldn't matter much. Since the cgroup had write access to the inode, there are no practical concerns of the possible DoS issues. Acked-by: Tejun Heo Signed-off-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

writeback: Avoid softlockup when switching many inodes

2025-10-19T14:23:22+00:00

[ Upstream commit 66c14dccd810d42ec5c73bb8a9177489dfd62278 ] process_inode_switch_wbs_work() can be switching over 100 inodes to a different cgroup. Since switching an inode requires counting all dirty & under-writeback pages in the address space of each inode, this can take a significant amount of time. Add a possibility to reschedule after processing each inode to avoid softlockups. Acked-by: Tejun Heo Signed-off-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

fs: writeback: fix use-after-free in __mark_inode_dirty()

2025-09-09T16:54:12+00:00

[ Upstream commit d02d2c98d25793902f65803ab853b592c7a96b29 ] An use-after-free issue occurred when __mark_inode_dirty() get the bdi_writeback that was in the progress of switching. CPU: 1 PID: 562 Comm: systemd-random- Not tainted 6.6.56-gb4403bd46a8e #1 ...... pstate: 60400005 (nZCv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) pc : __mark_inode_dirty+0x124/0x418 lr : __mark_inode_dirty+0x118/0x418 sp : ffffffc08c9dbbc0 ........ Call trace: __mark_inode_dirty+0x124/0x418 generic_update_time+0x4c/0x60 file_modified+0xcc/0xd0 ext4_buffered_write_iter+0x58/0x124 ext4_file_write_iter+0x54/0x704 vfs_write+0x1c0/0x308 ksys_write+0x74/0x10c __arm64_sys_write+0x1c/0x28 invoke_syscall+0x48/0x114 el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0xc0/0xe0 do_el0_svc+0x1c/0x28 el0_svc+0x40/0xe4 el0t_64_sync_handler+0x120/0x12c el0t_64_sync+0x194/0x198 Root cause is: systemd-random-seed kworker ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ___mark_inode_dirty inode_switch_wbs_work_fn spin_lock(&inode->i_lock); inode_attach_wb locked_inode_to_wb_and_lock_list get inode->i_wb spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock); spin_lock(&wb->list_lock) spin_lock(&inode->i_lock) inode_io_list_move_locked spin_unlock(&wb->list_lock) spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock) spin_lock(&old_wb->list_lock) inode_do_switch_wbs spin_lock(&inode->i_lock) inode->i_wb = new_wb spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock) spin_unlock(&old_wb->list_lock) wb_put_many(old_wb, nr_switched) cgwb_release old wb released wb_wakeup_delayed() accesses wb, then trigger the use-after-free issue Fix this race condition by holding inode spinlock until wb_wakeup_delayed() finished. Signed-off-by: Jiufei Xue Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20250728100715.3863241-1-jiufei.xue@samsung.com Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

writeback, cgroup: switch inodes with dirty timestamps to release dying cgwbs

2023-11-20T10:51:50+00:00

[ Upstream commit 6654408a33e6297d8e1d2773409431d487399b95 ] The cgwb cleanup routine will try to release the dying cgwb by switching the attached inodes. It fetches the attached inodes from wb->b_attached list, omitting the fact that inodes only with dirty timestamps reside in wb->b_dirty_time list, which is the case when lazytime is enabled. This causes enormous zombie memory cgroup when lazytime is enabled, as inodes with dirty timestamps can not be switched to a live cgwb for a long time. It is reasonable not to switch cgwb for inodes with dirty data, as otherwise it may break the bandwidth restrictions. However since the writeback of inode metadata is not accounted for, let's also switch inodes with dirty timestamps to avoid zombie memory and block cgroups when laztytime is enabled. Fixes: c22d70a162d3 ("writeback, cgroup: release dying cgwbs by switching attached inodes") Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Jingbo Xu Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231014125511.102978-1-jefflexu@linux.alibaba.com Acked-by: Tejun Heo Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

fs-writeback: do not requeue a clean inode having skipped pages

2023-10-25T10:03:09+00:00

[ Upstream commit be049c3a088d512187407b7fd036cecfab46d565 ] When writing back an inode and performing an fsync on it concurrently, a deadlock issue may arise as shown below. In each writeback iteration, a clean inode is requeued to the wb->b_dirty queue due to non-zero pages_skipped, without anything actually being written. This causes an infinite loop and prevents the plug from being flushed, resulting in a deadlock. We now avoid requeuing the clean inode to prevent this issue. wb_writeback fsync (inode-Y) blk_start_plug(&plug) for (;;) { iter i-1: some reqs with page-X added into plug->mq_list // f2fs node page-X with PG_writeback filemap_fdatawrite __filemap_fdatawrite_range // write inode-Y with sync_mode WB_SYNC_ALL do_writepages f2fs_write_data_pages __f2fs_write_data_pages // wb_sync_req[DATA]++ for WB_SYNC_ALL f2fs_write_cache_pages f2fs_write_single_data_page f2fs_do_write_data_page f2fs_outplace_write_data f2fs_update_data_blkaddr f2fs_wait_on_page_writeback wait_on_page_writeback // wait for f2fs node page-X iter i: progress = __writeback_inodes_wb(wb, work) . writeback_sb_inodes . __writeback_single_inode // write inode-Y with sync_mode WB_SYNC_NONE . . do_writepages . . f2fs_write_data_pages . . . __f2fs_write_data_pages // skip writepages due to (wb_sync_req[DATA]>0) . . . wbc->pages_skipped += get_dirty_pages(inode) // wbc->pages_skipped = 1 . if (!(inode->i_state & I_DIRTY_ALL)) // i_state = I_SYNC | I_SYNC_QUEUED . total_wrote++; // total_wrote = 1 . requeue_inode // requeue inode-Y to wb->b_dirty queue due to non-zero pages_skipped if (progress) // progress = 1 continue; iter i+1: queue_io // similar process with iter i, infinite for-loop ! } blk_finish_plug(&plug) // flush plug won't be called Signed-off-by: Chunhai Guo Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Message-Id: <20230916045131.957929-1-guochunhai@vivo.com> Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

writeback: fix call of incorrect macro

2023-05-17T09:53:33+00:00

[ Upstream commit 3e46c89c74f2c38e5337d2cf44b0b551adff1cb4 ] the variable 'history' is of type u16, it may be an error that the hweight32 macro was used for it I guess macro hweight16 should be used Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with SVACE. Fixes: 2a81490811d0 ("writeback: implement foreign cgroup inode detection") Signed-off-by: Maxim Korotkov Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230119104443.3002-1-korotkov.maxim.s@gmail.com Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

writeback, cgroup: fix null-ptr-deref write in bdi_split_work_to_wbs

2023-04-26T12:28:39+00:00

commit 1ba1199ec5747f475538c0d25a32804e5ba1dfde upstream. KASAN report null-ptr-deref: ================================================================== BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in bdi_split_work_to_wbs+0x5c5/0x7b0 Write of size 8 at addr 0000000000000000 by task sync/943 CPU: 5 PID: 943 Comm: sync Tainted: 6.3.0-rc5-next-20230406-dirty #461 Call Trace: dump_stack_lvl+0x7f/0xc0 print_report+0x2ba/0x340 kasan_report+0xc4/0x120 kasan_check_range+0x1b7/0x2e0 __kasan_check_write+0x24/0x40 bdi_split_work_to_wbs+0x5c5/0x7b0 sync_inodes_sb+0x195/0x630 sync_inodes_one_sb+0x3a/0x50 iterate_supers+0x106/0x1b0 ksys_sync+0x98/0x160 [...] ================================================================== The race that causes the above issue is as follows: cpu1 cpu2 -------------------------|------------------------- inode_switch_wbs INIT_WORK(&isw->work, inode_switch_wbs_work_fn) queue_rcu_work(isw_wq, &isw->work) // queue_work async inode_switch_wbs_work_fn wb_put_many(old_wb, nr_switched) percpu_ref_put_many ref->data->release(ref) cgwb_release queue_work(cgwb_release_wq, &wb->release_work) // queue_work async &wb->release_work cgwb_release_workfn ksys_sync iterate_supers sync_inodes_one_sb sync_inodes_sb bdi_split_work_to_wbs kmalloc(sizeof(*work), GFP_ATOMIC) // alloc memory failed percpu_ref_exit ref->data = NULL kfree(data) wb_get(wb) percpu_ref_get(&wb->refcnt) percpu_ref_get_many(ref, 1) atomic_long_add(nr, &ref->data->count) atomic64_add(i, v) // trigger null-ptr-deref bdi_split_work_to_wbs() traverses &bdi->wb_list to split work into all wbs. If the allocation of new work fails, the on-stack fallback will be used and the reference count of the current wb is increased afterwards. If cgroup writeback membership switches occur before getting the reference count and the current wb is released as old_wd, then calling wb_get() or wb_put() will trigger the null pointer dereference above. This issue was introduced in v4.3-rc7 (see fix tag1). Both sync_inodes_sb() and __writeback_inodes_sb_nr() calls to bdi_split_work_to_wbs() can trigger this issue. For scenarios called via sync_inodes_sb(), originally commit 7fc5854f8c6e ("writeback: synchronize sync(2) against cgroup writeback membership switches") reduced the possibility of the issue by adding wb_switch_rwsem, but in v5.14-rc1 (see fix tag2) removed the "inode_io_list_del_locked(inode, old_wb)" from inode_switch_wbs_work_fn() so that wb->state contains WB_has_dirty_io, thus old_wb is not skipped when traversing wbs in bdi_split_work_to_wbs(), and the issue becomes easily reproducible again. To solve this problem, percpu_ref_exit() is called under RCU protection to avoid race between cgwb_release_workfn() and bdi_split_work_to_wbs(). Moreover, replace wb_get() with wb_tryget() in bdi_split_work_to_wbs(), and skip the current wb if wb_tryget() fails because the wb has already been shutdown. Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20230410130826.1492525-1-libaokun1@huawei.com Fixes: b817525a4a80 ("writeback: bdi_writeback iteration must not skip dying ones") Signed-off-by: Baokun Li Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Acked-by: Tejun Heo Cc: Alexander Viro Cc: Andreas Dilger Cc: Christian Brauner Cc: Dennis Zhou Cc: Hou Tao Cc: yangerkun Cc: Zhang Yi Cc: Jens Axboe Cc: Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

fs: do not update freeing inode i_io_list

2022-11-22T22:00:00+00:00

After commit cbfecb927f42 ("fs: record I_DIRTY_TIME even if inode already has I_DIRTY_INODE") writeback_single_inode can push inode with I_DIRTY_TIME set to b_dirty_time list. In case of freeing inode with I_DIRTY_TIME set this can happen after deletion of inode from i_io_list at evict. Stack trace is following. evict fat_evict_inode fat_truncate_blocks fat_flush_inodes writeback_inode sync_inode_metadata(inode, sync=0) writeback_single_inode(inode, wbc) <- wbc->sync_mode == WB_SYNC_NONE This will lead to use after free in flusher thread. Similar issue can be triggered if writeback_single_inode in the stack trace update inode->i_io_list. Add explicit check to avoid it. Fixes: cbfecb927f42 ("fs: record I_DIRTY_TIME even if inode already has I_DIRTY_INODE") Reported-by: syzbot+6ba92bd00d5093f7e371@syzkaller.appspotmail.com Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Svyatoslav Feldsherov Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221115202001.324188-1-feldsherov@google.com Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o

fs: record I_DIRTY_TIME even if inode already has I_DIRTY_INODE

2022-09-30T03:02:00+00:00

Currently the I_DIRTY_TIME will never get set if the inode already has I_DIRTY_INODE with assumption that it supersedes I_DIRTY_TIME. That's true, however ext4 will only update the on-disk inode in ->dirty_inode(), not on actual writeback. As a result if the inode already has I_DIRTY_INODE state by the time we get to __mark_inode_dirty() only with I_DIRTY_TIME, the time was already filled into on-disk inode and will not get updated until the next I_DIRTY_INODE update, which might never come if we crash or get a power failure. The problem can be reproduced on ext4 by running xfstest generic/622 with -o iversion mount option. Fix it by allowing I_DIRTY_TIME to be set even if the inode already has I_DIRTY_INODE. Also make sure that the case is properly handled in writeback_single_inode() as well. Additionally changes in xfs_fs_dirty_inode() was made to accommodate for I_DIRTY_TIME in flag. Thanks Jan Kara for suggestions on how to make this work properly. Cc: Dave Chinner Cc: Christoph Hellwig Cc: stable@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Lukas Czerner Suggested-by: Jan Kara Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220825100657.44217-1-lczerner@redhat.com Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o