From: Andreas Gruenbacher Here is a fix for extended attributes on ext2 and ext3, reported by Stephen Tweedie . From: Stephen Tweedie : When you have an EA block that is shared between multiple inodes; AND you then change an attribute in that on one inode, AND the new attribute value is the same as the old, then xattr computes the new EA block, finds it still in the cache, bumps the reference count on it (and the i_blocks field on the inode, incidentally), and leaves it incremented because we haven't changed EA block so there's no need to drop the refcount on the old block. So *every* time you have more than one inode sharing an EA block and you perform an identical write to an EA, you get a leak on both i_blocks and the EA refcount. This is a big problem for symlinks, which rely on correct i_blocks accounting to determine the difference between fast and slow symlinks. With the leak, you end up thinking that a fast symlink (ie. one small enough to be stored in the inode direct blocks) is slow, so you dereference the ascii contents of the symlink as if they were a disk block address. That typically results in EIO all over the place. --- 25-akpm/fs/ext2/xattr.c | 35 +++++++++++++++++------------------ 25-akpm/fs/ext3/xattr.c | 35 ++++++++++++++++++----------------- 2 files changed, 35 insertions(+), 35 deletions(-) diff -puN fs/ext2/xattr.c~ext23-xattr-i_blocks-fix fs/ext2/xattr.c --- 25/fs/ext2/xattr.c~ext23-xattr-i_blocks-fix Wed Feb 4 13:54:47 2004 +++ 25-akpm/fs/ext2/xattr.c Wed Feb 4 13:54:47 2004 @@ -741,25 +741,24 @@ ext2_xattr_set2(struct inode *inode, str if (header) { new_bh = ext2_xattr_cache_find(inode, header); if (new_bh) { - /* - * We found an identical block in the cache. The - * block returned is locked. The old block will - * be released after updating the inode. - */ - ea_bdebug(new_bh, "%s block %lu", - (old_bh == new_bh) ? "keeping" : "reusing", - (unsigned long) new_bh->b_blocknr); - - error = -EDQUOT; - if (DQUOT_ALLOC_BLOCK(inode, 1)) { - unlock_buffer(new_bh); - goto cleanup; + /* We found an identical block in the cache. */ + if (new_bh == old_bh) { + ea_bdebug(new_bh, "keeping this block"); + } else { + /* The old block is released after updating + the inode. */ + ea_bdebug(new_bh, "reusing block"); + + error = -EDQUOT; + if (DQUOT_ALLOC_BLOCK(inode, 1)) { + unlock_buffer(new_bh); + goto cleanup; + } + HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount = cpu_to_le32(1 + + le32_to_cpu(HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount)); + ea_bdebug(new_bh, "refcount now=%d", + le32_to_cpu(HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount)); } - - HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount = cpu_to_le32( - le32_to_cpu(HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount) + 1); - ea_bdebug(new_bh, "refcount now=%d", - le32_to_cpu(HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount)); unlock_buffer(new_bh); } else if (old_bh && header == HDR(old_bh)) { /* Keep this block. No need to lock the block as we diff -puN fs/ext3/xattr.c~ext23-xattr-i_blocks-fix fs/ext3/xattr.c --- 25/fs/ext3/xattr.c~ext23-xattr-i_blocks-fix Wed Feb 4 13:54:47 2004 +++ 25-akpm/fs/ext3/xattr.c Wed Feb 4 13:54:47 2004 @@ -753,25 +753,26 @@ ext3_xattr_set_handle2(handle_t *handle, if (header) { new_bh = ext3_xattr_cache_find(handle, inode, header, &credits); if (new_bh) { - /* - * We found an identical block in the cache. The - * block returned is locked. The old block will - * be released after updating the inode. - */ - ea_bdebug(new_bh, "%s block %lu", - (old_bh == new_bh) ? "keeping" : "reusing", - (unsigned long) new_bh->b_blocknr); + /* We found an identical block in the cache. */ + if (new_bh == old_bh) + ea_bdebug(new_bh, "keeping this block"); + else { + /* The old block is released after updating + the inode. */ + ea_bdebug(new_bh, "reusing block"); - error = -EDQUOT; - if (DQUOT_ALLOC_BLOCK(inode, 1)) { - unlock_buffer(new_bh); - journal_release_buffer(handle, new_bh, credits); - goto cleanup; + error = -EDQUOT; + if (DQUOT_ALLOC_BLOCK(inode, 1)) { + unlock_buffer(new_bh); + journal_release_buffer(handle, new_bh, + credits); + goto cleanup; + } + HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount = cpu_to_le32(1 + + le32_to_cpu(HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount)); + ea_bdebug(new_bh, "refcount now=%d", + le32_to_cpu(HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount)); } - HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount = cpu_to_le32( - le32_to_cpu(HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount) + 1); - ea_bdebug(new_bh, "refcount now=%d", - le32_to_cpu(HDR(new_bh)->h_refcount)); unlock_buffer(new_bh); } else if (old_bh && header == HDR(old_bh)) { /* Keep this block. No need to lock the block as we _