tree b282894f8318f04119d4583b496b18a72b652049
parent 63136858aecbe86dbd3c3289a3f46ba1b5f92239
author Tahsin Erdogan <tahsin@google.com> 1499141481 -0400
committer Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> 1499141481 -0400

ext4: change fast symlink test to not rely on i_blocks

ext4_inode_info->i_data is the storage area for 4 types of data:

  a) Extents data
  b) Inline data
  c) Block map
  d) Fast symlink data (symlink length < 60)

Extents data case is positively identified by EXT4_INODE_EXTENTS flag.
Inline data case is also obvious because of EXT4_INODE_INLINE_DATA
flag.

Distinguishing c) and d) however requires additional logic. This
currently relies on i_blocks count. After subtracting external xattr
block from i_blocks, if it is greater than 0 then we know that some
data blocks exist, so there must be a block map.

This logic got broken after ea_inode feature was added. That feature
charges the data blocks of external xattr inodes to the referencing
inode and so adds them to the i_blocks. To fix this, we could subtract
ea_inode blocks by iterating through all xattr entries and then check
whether remaining i_blocks count is zero. Besides being complicated,
this won't change the fact that the current way of distinguishing
between c) and d) is fragile.

The alternative solution is to test whether i_size is less than 60 to
determine fast symlink case. ext4_symlink() uses the same test to decide
whether to store the symlink in i_data. There is one caveat to address
before this can work though.

If an inode's i_nlink is zero during eviction, its i_size is set to
zero and its data is truncated. If system crashes before inode is removed
from the orphan list, next boot orphan cleanup may find the inode with
zero i_size. So, a symlink that had its data stored in a block may now
appear to be a fast symlink. The solution used in this patch is to treat
i_size = 0 as a non-fast symlink case. A zero sized symlink is not legal
so the only time this can happen is the mentioned scenario. This is also
logically correct because a i_size = 0 symlink has no data stored in
i_data.

Suggested-by: Andreas Dilger <adilger@dilger.ca>
Signed-off-by: Tahsin Erdogan <tahsin@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
Reviewed-by: Andreas Dilger <adilger@dilger.ca>