kernel/linux.git/fs, branch v6.18.15

ext4: use optimized mballoc scanning regardless of inode format

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit 3574c322b1d0eb32dbd76b469cb08f9a67641599 upstream. Currently we don't used mballoc optimized scanning (using max free extent order and avg free extent order group lists) for inodes with indirect block based format. This is confusing for users and I don't see a good reason for that. Even with indirect block based inode format we can spend big amount of time searching for free blocks for large filesystems with fragmented free space. To add to the confusion before commit 077d0c2c78df ("ext4: make mb_optimize_scan performance mount option work with extents") optimized scanning was applied *only* to indirect block based inodes so that commit appears as a performance regression to some users. Just use optimized scanning whenever it is enabled by mount options. Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Reviewed-by: Zhang Yi Signed-off-by: Jan Kara Cc: stable@kernel.org Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260114182836.14120-4-jack@suse.cz Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ext4: always allocate blocks only from groups inode can use

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit 4865c768b563deff1b6a6384e74a62f143427b42 upstream. For filesystems with more than 2^32 blocks inodes using indirect block based format cannot use blocks beyond the 32-bit limit. ext4_mb_scan_groups_linear() takes care to not select these unsupported groups for such inodes however other functions selecting groups for allocation don't. So far this is harmless because the other selection functions are used only with mb_optimize_scan and this is currently disabled for inodes with indirect blocks however in the following patch we want to enable mb_optimize_scan regardless of inode format. Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Reviewed-by: Zhang Yi Signed-off-by: Jan Kara Acked-by: Pedro Falcato Cc: stable@kernel.org Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260114182836.14120-3-jack@suse.cz Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ext4: fix dirtyclusters double decrement on fs shutdown

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit 94a8cea54cd935c54fa2fba70354757c0fc245e3 upstream. fstests test generic/388 occasionally reproduces a warning in ext4_put_super() associated with the dirty clusters count: WARNING: CPU: 7 PID: 76064 at fs/ext4/super.c:1324 ext4_put_super+0x48c/0x590 [ext4] Tracing the failure shows that the warning fires due to an s_dirtyclusters_counter value of -1. IOW, this appears to be a spurious decrement as opposed to some sort of leak. Further tracing of the dirty cluster count deltas and an LLM scan of the resulting output identified the cause as a double decrement in the error path between ext4_mb_mark_diskspace_used() and the caller ext4_mb_new_blocks(). First, note that generic/388 is a shutdown vs. fsstress test and so produces a random set of operations and shutdown injections. In the problematic case, the shutdown triggers an error return from the ext4_handle_dirty_metadata() call(s) made from ext4_mb_mark_context(). The changed value is non-zero at this point, so ext4_mb_mark_diskspace_used() does not exit after the error bubbles up from ext4_mb_mark_context(). Instead, the former decrements both cluster counters and returns the error up to ext4_mb_new_blocks(). The latter falls into the !ar->len out path which decrements the dirty clusters counter a second time, creating the inconsistency. To avoid this problem and simplify ownership of the cluster reservation in this codepath, lift the counter reduction to a single place in the caller. This makes it more clear that ext4_mb_new_blocks() is responsible for acquiring cluster reservation (via ext4_claim_free_clusters()) in the !delalloc case as well as releasing it, regardless of whether it ends up consumed or returned due to failure. Fixes: 0087d9fb3f29 ("ext4: Fix s_dirty_blocks_counter if block allocation failed with nodelalloc") Signed-off-by: Brian Foster Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260113171905.118284-1-bfoster@redhat.com Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Cc: stable@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ext4: fix e4b bitmap inconsistency reports

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit bdc56a9c46b2a99c12313122b9352b619a2e719e upstream. A bitmap inconsistency issue was observed during stress tests under mixed huge-page workloads. Ext4 reported multiple e4b bitmap check failures like: ext4_mb_complex_scan_group:2508: group 350, 8179 free clusters as per group info. But got 8192 blocks Analysis and experimentation confirmed that the issue is caused by a race condition between page migration and bitmap modification. Although this timing window is extremely narrow, it is still hit in practice: folio_lock ext4_mb_load_buddy __migrate_folio check ref count folio_mc_copy __filemap_get_folio folio_try_get(folio) ...... mb_mark_used ext4_mb_unload_buddy __folio_migrate_mapping folio_ref_freeze folio_unlock The root cause of this issue is that the fast path of load_buddy only increments the folio's reference count, which is insufficient to prevent concurrent folio migration. We observed that the folio migration process acquires the folio lock. Therefore, we can determine whether to take the fast path in load_buddy by checking the lock status. If the folio is locked, we opt for the slow path (which acquires the lock) to close this concurrency window. Additionally, this change addresses the following issues: When the DOUBLE_CHECK macro is enabled to inspect bitmap-related issues, the following error may be triggered: corruption in group 324 at byte 784(6272): f in copy != ff on disk/prealloc Analysis reveals that this is a false positive. There is a specific race window where the bitmap and the group descriptor become momentarily inconsistent, leading to this error report: ext4_mb_load_buddy ext4_mb_load_buddy __filemap_get_folio(create|lock) folio_lock ext4_mb_init_cache folio_mark_uptodate __filemap_get_folio(no lock) ...... mb_mark_used mb_mark_used_double mb_cmp_bitmaps mb_set_bits(e4b->bd_bitmap) folio_unlock The original logic assumed that since mb_cmp_bitmaps is called when the bitmap is newly loaded from disk, the folio lock would be sufficient to prevent concurrent access. However, this overlooks a specific race condition: if another process attempts to load buddy and finds the folio is already in an uptodate state, it will immediately begin using it without holding folio lock. Signed-off-by: Yongjian Sun Reviewed-by: Zhang Yi Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Reviewed-by: Jan Kara Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260106090820.836242-1-sunyongjian@huaweicloud.com Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Cc: stable@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ext4: fix memory leak in ext4_ext_shift_extents()

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit ca81109d4a8f192dc1cbad4a1ee25246363c2833 upstream. In ext4_ext_shift_extents(), if the extent is NULL in the while loop, the function returns immediately without releasing the path obtained via ext4_find_extent(), leading to a memory leak. Fix this by jumping to the out label to ensure the path is properly released. Fixes: a18ed359bdddc ("ext4: always check ext4_ext_find_extent result") Signed-off-by: Zilin Guan Reviewed-by: Zhang Yi Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251225084800.905701-1-zilin@seu.edu.cn Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Cc: stable@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ext4: drop extent cache when splitting extent fails

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit 79b592e8f1b435796cbc2722190368e3e8ffd7a1 upstream. When the split extent fails, we might leave some extents still being processed and return an error directly, which will result in stale extent entries remaining in the extent status tree. So drop all of the remaining potentially stale extents if the splitting fails. Signed-off-by: Zhang Yi Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Cc: stable@kernel.org Reviewed-by: Ojaswin Mujoo Message-ID: <20251129103247.686136-8-yi.zhang@huaweicloud.com> Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ext4: drop extent cache after doing PARTIAL_VALID1 zeroout

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit 6d882ea3b0931b43530d44149b79fcd4ffc13030 upstream. When splitting an unwritten extent in the middle and converting it to initialized in ext4_split_extent() with the EXT4_EXT_MAY_ZEROOUT and EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID2 flags set, it could leave a stale unwritten extent. Assume we have an unwritten file and buffered write in the middle of it without dioread_nolock enabled, it will allocate blocks as written extent. 0 A B N [UUUUUUUUUUUU] on-disk extent U: unwritten extent [UUUUUUUUUUUU] extent status tree [--DDDDDDDD--] D: valid data |<- ->| ----> this range needs to be initialized ext4_split_extent() first try to split this extent at B with EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1 and EXT4_EXT_MAY_ZEROOUT flag set, but ext4_split_extent_at() failed to split this extent due to temporary lack of space. It zeroout B to N and leave the entire extent as unwritten. 0 A B N [UUUUUUUUUUUU] on-disk extent [UUUUUUUUUUUU] extent status tree [--DDDDDDDDZZ] Z: zeroed data ext4_split_extent() then try to split this extent at A with EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID2 flag set. This time, it split successfully and leave an written extent from A to N. 0 A B N [UUWWWWWWWWWW] on-disk extent W: written extent [UUUUUUUUUUUU] extent status tree [--DDDDDDDDZZ] Finally ext4_map_create_blocks() only insert extent A to B to the extent status tree, and leave an stale unwritten extent in the status tree. 0 A B N [UUWWWWWWWWWW] on-disk extent W: written extent [UUWWWWWWWWUU] extent status tree [--DDDDDDDDZZ] Fix this issue by always cached extent status entry after zeroing out the second part. Signed-off-by: Zhang Yi Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Cc: stable@kernel.org Reviewed-by: Ojaswin Mujoo Message-ID: <20251129103247.686136-7-yi.zhang@huaweicloud.com> Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ext4: don't cache extent during splitting extent

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit 8b4b19a2f96348d70bfa306ef7d4a13b0bcbea79 upstream. Caching extents during the splitting process is risky, as it may result in stale extents remaining in the status tree. Moreover, in most cases, the corresponding extent block entries are likely already cached before the split happens, making caching here not particularly useful. Assume we have an unwritten extent, and then DIO writes the first half. [UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU] on-disk extent U: unwritten extent [UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU] extent status tree |<- ->| ----> dio write this range First, when ext4_split_extent_at() splits this extent, it truncates the existing extent and then inserts a new one. During this process, this extent status entry may be shrunk, and calls to ext4_find_extent() and ext4_cache_extents() may occur, which could potentially insert the truncated range as a hole into the extent status tree. After the split is completed, this hole is not replaced with the correct status. [UUUUUUU|UUUUUUUU] on-disk extent U: unwritten extent [UUUUUUU|HHHHHHHH] extent status tree H: hole Then, the outer calling functions will not correct this remaining hole extent either. Finally, if we perform a delayed buffer write on this latter part, it will re-insert the delayed extent and cause an error in space accounting. In adition, if the unwritten extent cache is not shrunk during the splitting, ext4_cache_extents() also conflicts with existing extents when caching extents. In the future, we will add checks when caching extents, which will trigger a warning. Therefore, Do not cache extents that are being split. Signed-off-by: Zhang Yi Reviewed-by: Ojaswin Mujoo Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Cc: stable@kernel.org Message-ID: <20251129103247.686136-6-yi.zhang@huaweicloud.com> Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ext4: don't zero the entire extent if EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit 1bf6974822d1dba86cf11b5f05498581cf3488a2 upstream. When allocating initialized blocks from a large unwritten extent, or when splitting an unwritten extent during end I/O and converting it to initialized, there is currently a potential issue of stale data if the extent needs to be split in the middle. 0 A B N [UUUUUUUUUUUU] U: unwritten extent [--DDDDDDDD--] D: valid data |<- ->| ----> this range needs to be initialized ext4_split_extent() first try to split this extent at B with EXT4_EXT_DATA_ENTIRE_VALID1 and EXT4_EXT_MAY_ZEROOUT flag set, but ext4_split_extent_at() failed to split this extent due to temporary lack of space. It zeroout B to N and mark the entire extent from 0 to N as written. 0 A B N [WWWWWWWWWWWW] W: written extent [SSDDDDDDDDZZ] Z: zeroed, S: stale data ext4_split_extent() then try to split this extent at A with EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID2 flag set. This time, it split successfully and left a stale written extent from 0 to A. 0 A B N [WW|WWWWWWWWWW] [SS|DDDDDDDDZZ] Fix this by pass EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1 to ext4_split_extent_at() when splitting at B, don't convert the entire extent to written and left it as unwritten after zeroing out B to N. The remaining work is just like the standard two-part split. ext4_split_extent() will pass the EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID2 flag when it calls ext4_split_extent_at() for the second time, allowing it to properly handle the split. If the split is successful, it will keep extent from 0 to A as unwritten. Signed-off-by: Zhang Yi Reviewed-by: Ojaswin Mujoo Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Cc: stable@kernel.org Message-ID: <20251129103247.686136-3-yi.zhang@huaweicloud.com> Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

ext4: subdivide EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID1

2026-02-26T22:59:45+00:00

commit 22784ca541c0f01c5ebad14e8228298dc0a390ed upstream. When splitting an extent, if the EXT4_GET_BLOCKS_CONVERT flag is set and it is necessary to split the target extent in the middle, ext4_split_extent() first handles splitting the latter half of the extent and passes the EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID1 flag. This flag implies that all blocks before the split point contain valid data; however, this assumption is incorrect. Therefore, subdivid EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID1 into EXT4_EXT_DATA_ENTIRE_VALID1 and EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1, which indicate that the first half of the extent is either entirely valid or only partially valid, respectively. These two flags cannot be set simultaneously. This patch does not use EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1, it only replaces EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID1 with EXT4_EXT_DATA_ENTIRE_VALID1 at the location where it is set, no logical changes. Signed-off-by: Zhang Yi Reviewed-by: Ojaswin Mujoo Reviewed-by: Baokun Li Cc: stable@kernel.org Message-ID: <20251129103247.686136-2-yi.zhang@huaweicloud.com> Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman