16 Commits (5fbcae57db69128c14080a7a5a42d0626bfe155c)

Author	SHA1	Message	Date
David Howells	8f9941aecc	CacheFiles: Fix a race in cachefiles_delete_object() vs rename ... cachefiles_delete_object() can race with rename. It gets the parent directory of the object it's asked to delete, then locks it - but rename may have changed the object's parent between the get and the completion of the lock. However, if such a circumstance is detected, we abandon our attempt to delete the object - since it's no longer in the index key path, it won't be seen again by lookups of that key. The assumption is that cachefilesd may have culled it by renaming it to the graveyard for later destruction. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>	15 years ago
Al Viro	b65a9cfc2c	Untangling ima mess, part 2: deal with counters ... * do ima_get_count() in __dentry_open() * stop doing that in followups * move ima_path_check() to right after nameidata_to_filp() * don't bump counters on it Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>	15 years ago
Al Viro	b0446be4be	switch cachefiles to kern_path() ... Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>	15 years ago
André Goddard Rosa	e7d2860b69	tree-wide: convert open calls to remove spaces to skip_spaces() lib function ... Makes use of skip_spaces() defined in lib/string.c for removing leading spaces from strings all over the tree. It decreases lib.a code size by 47 bytes and reuses the function tree-wide: text data bss dec hex filename 64688 584 592 65864 10148 (TOTALS-BEFORE) 64641 584 592 65817 10119 (TOTALS-AFTER) Also, while at it, if we see (*str && isspace(*str)), we can be sure to remove the first condition (*str) as the second one (isspace(*str)) also evaluates to 0 whenever *str == 0, making it redundant. In other words, "a char equals zero is never a space". Julia Lawall tried the semantic patch (http://coccinelle.lip6.fr) below, and found occurrences of this pattern on 3 more files: drivers/leds/led-class.c drivers/leds/ledtrig-timer.c drivers/video/output.c @@ expression str; @@ ( // ignore skip_spaces cases while (*str && isspace(*str)) { \(str++;\|++str;\) } | - *str && isspace(*str) ) Signed-off-by: André Goddard Rosa <andre.goddard@gmail.com> Cc: Julia Lawall <julia@diku.dk> Cc: Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@de.ibm.com> Cc: Jeff Dike <jdike@addtoit.com> Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> Cc: Richard Purdie <rpurdie@rpsys.net> Cc: Neil Brown <neilb@suse.de> Cc: Kyle McMartin <kyle@mcmartin.ca> Cc: Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@hmh.eng.br> Cc: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Cc: <linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org> Cc: Samuel Ortiz <samuel@sortiz.org> Cc: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net> Cc: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>	15 years ago
Marc Dionne	3350b2acdd	CacheFiles: Update IMA counters when using dentry_open ... When IMA is active, using dentry_open without updating the IMA counters will result in free/open imbalance errors when fput is eventually called. Signed-off-by: Marc Dionne <marc.c.dionne@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>	15 years ago
David Howells	14e69647c8	CacheFiles: Don't log lookup/create failing with ENOBUFS ... Don't log the CacheFiles lookup/create object routined failing with ENOBUFS as under high memory load or high cache load they can do this quite a lot. This error simply means that the requested object cannot be created on disk due to lack of space, or due to failure of the backing filesystem to find sufficient resources. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>	15 years ago
David Howells	fee096deb4	CacheFiles: Catch an overly long wait for an old active object ... Catch an overly long wait for an old, dying active object when we want to replace it with a new one. The probability is that all the slow-work threads are hogged, and the delete can't get a look in. What we do instead is: (1) if there's nothing in the slow work queue, we sleep until either the dying object has finished dying or there is something in the slow work queue behind which we can queue our object. (2) if there is something in the slow work queue, we return ETIMEDOUT to fscache_lookup_object(), which then puts us back on the slow work queue, presumably behind the deletion that we're blocked by. We are then deferred for a while until we work our way back through the queue - without blocking a slow-work thread unnecessarily. A backtrace similar to the following may appear in the log without this patch: INFO: task kslowd004:5711 blocked for more than 120 seconds. "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. kslowd004 D 0000000000000000 0 5711 2 0x00000080 ffff88000340bb80 0000000000000046 ffff88002550d000 0000000000000000 ffff88002550d000 0000000000000007 ffff88000340bfd8 ffff88002550d2a8 000000000000ddf0 00000000000118c0 00000000000118c0 ffff88002550d2a8 Call Trace: [<ffffffff81058e21>] ? trace_hardirqs_on+0xd/0xf [<ffffffffa011c4d8>] ? cachefiles_wait_bit+0x0/0xd [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa011c4e1>] cachefiles_wait_bit+0x9/0xd [cachefiles] [<ffffffff81353153>] __wait_on_bit+0x43/0x76 [<ffffffff8111ae39>] ? ext3_xattr_get+0x1ec/0x270 [<ffffffff813531ef>] out_of_line_wait_on_bit+0x69/0x74 [<ffffffffa011c4d8>] ? cachefiles_wait_bit+0x0/0xd [cachefiles] [<ffffffff8104c125>] ? wake_bit_function+0x0/0x2e [<ffffffffa011bc79>] cachefiles_mark_object_active+0x203/0x23b [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa011c209>] cachefiles_walk_to_object+0x558/0x827 [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa011a429>] cachefiles_lookup_object+0xac/0x12a [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa00aa1e9>] fscache_lookup_object+0x1c7/0x214 [fscache] [<ffffffffa00aafc5>] fscache_object_state_machine+0xa5/0x52d [fscache] [<ffffffffa00ab4ac>] fscache_object_slow_work_execute+0x5f/0xa0 [fscache] [<ffffffff81082093>] slow_work_execute+0x18f/0x2d1 [<ffffffff8108239a>] slow_work_thread+0x1c5/0x308 [<ffffffff8104c0f1>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x34 [<ffffffff810821d5>] ? slow_work_thread+0x0/0x308 [<ffffffff8104be91>] kthread+0x7a/0x82 [<ffffffff8100beda>] child_rip+0xa/0x20 [<ffffffff8100b87c>] ? restore_args+0x0/0x30 [<ffffffff8104be17>] ? kthread+0x0/0x82 [<ffffffff8100bed0>] ? child_rip+0x0/0x20 1 lock held by kslowd004/5711: #0: (&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#7/1){+.+.+.}, at: [<ffffffffa011be64>] cachefiles_walk_to_object+0x1b3/0x827 [cachefiles] Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>	15 years ago
David Howells	d0e27b7808	CacheFiles: Better showing of debugging information in active object problems ... Show more debugging information if cachefiles_mark_object_active() is asked to activate an active object. This may happen, for instance, if the netfs tries to register an object with the same key multiple times. The code is changed to (a) get the appropriate object lock to protect the cookie pointer whilst we dereference it, and (b) get and display the cookie key if available. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>	15 years ago
David Howells	6511de33c8	CacheFiles: Mark parent directory locks as I_MUTEX_PARENT to keep lockdep happy ... Mark parent directory locks as I_MUTEX_PARENT in the callers of cachefiles_bury_object() so that lockdep doesn't complain when that invokes vfs_unlink(): ============================================= [ INFO: possible recursive locking detected ] 2.6.32-rc6-cachefs #47 --------------------------------------------- kslowd002/3089 is trying to acquire lock: (&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#7){+.+.+.}, at: [<ffffffff810bbf72>] vfs_unlink+0x8b/0x128 but task is already holding lock: (&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#7){+.+.+.}, at: [<ffffffffa00e4e61>] cachefiles_walk_to_object+0x1b0/0x831 [cachefiles] other info that might help us debug this: 1 lock held by kslowd002/3089: #0: (&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#7){+.+.+.}, at: [<ffffffffa00e4e61>] cachefiles_walk_to_object+0x1b0/0x831 [cachefiles] stack backtrace: Pid: 3089, comm: kslowd002 Not tainted 2.6.32-rc6-cachefs #47 Call Trace: [<ffffffff8105ad7b>] __lock_acquire+0x1649/0x16e3 [<ffffffff8118170e>] ? inode_has_perm+0x5f/0x61 [<ffffffff8105ae6c>] lock_acquire+0x57/0x6d [<ffffffff810bbf72>] ? vfs_unlink+0x8b/0x128 [<ffffffff81353ac3>] mutex_lock_nested+0x54/0x292 [<ffffffff810bbf72>] ? vfs_unlink+0x8b/0x128 [<ffffffff8118179e>] ? selinux_inode_permission+0x8e/0x90 [<ffffffff8117e271>] ? security_inode_permission+0x1c/0x1e [<ffffffff810bb4fb>] ? inode_permission+0x99/0xa5 [<ffffffff810bbf72>] vfs_unlink+0x8b/0x128 [<ffffffff810adb19>] ? kfree+0xed/0xf9 [<ffffffffa00e3f00>] cachefiles_bury_object+0xb6/0x420 [cachefiles] [<ffffffff81058e21>] ? trace_hardirqs_on+0xd/0xf [<ffffffffa00e7e24>] ? cachefiles_check_object_xattr+0x233/0x293 [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa00e51b0>] cachefiles_walk_to_object+0x4ff/0x831 [cachefiles] [<ffffffff81032238>] ? finish_task_switch+0x0/0xb2 [<ffffffffa00e3429>] cachefiles_lookup_object+0xac/0x12a [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa00741e9>] fscache_lookup_object+0x1c7/0x214 [fscache] [<ffffffffa0074fc5>] fscache_object_state_machine+0xa5/0x52d [fscache] [<ffffffffa00754ac>] fscache_object_slow_work_execute+0x5f/0xa0 [fscache] [<ffffffff81082093>] slow_work_execute+0x18f/0x2d1 [<ffffffff8108239a>] slow_work_thread+0x1c5/0x308 [<ffffffff8104c0f1>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x34 [<ffffffff810821d5>] ? slow_work_thread+0x0/0x308 [<ffffffff8104be91>] kthread+0x7a/0x82 [<ffffffff8100beda>] child_rip+0xa/0x20 [<ffffffff8100b87c>] ? restore_args+0x0/0x30 [<ffffffff8104be17>] ? kthread+0x0/0x82 [<ffffffff8100bed0>] ? child_rip+0x0/0x20 Signed-off-by: Daivd Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>	15 years ago
David Howells	5e929b33c3	CacheFiles: Handle truncate unlocking the page we're reading ... Handle truncate unlocking the page we're attempting to read from the backing device before the read has completed. This was causing reports like the following to occur: Pid: 4765, comm: kslowd Not tainted 2.6.30.1 #1 Call Trace: [<ffffffffa0331d7a>] ? cachefiles_read_waiter+0xd9/0x147 [cachefiles] [<ffffffff804b74bd>] ? __wait_on_bit+0x60/0x6f [<ffffffff8022bbbb>] ? __wake_up_common+0x3f/0x71 [<ffffffff8022cc32>] ? __wake_up+0x30/0x44 [<ffffffff8024a41f>] ? __wake_up_bit+0x28/0x2d [<ffffffffa003a793>] ? ext3_truncate+0x4d7/0x8ed [ext3] [<ffffffff80281f90>] ? pagevec_lookup+0x17/0x1f [<ffffffff8028c2ff>] ? unmap_mapping_range+0x59/0x1ff [<ffffffff8022cc32>] ? __wake_up+0x30/0x44 [<ffffffff8028e286>] ? vmtruncate+0xc2/0xe2 [<ffffffff802b82cf>] ? inode_setattr+0x22/0x10a [<ffffffffa003baa5>] ? ext3_setattr+0x17b/0x1e6 [ext3] [<ffffffff802b853d>] ? notify_change+0x186/0x2c9 [<ffffffffa032d9de>] ? cachefiles_attr_changed+0x133/0x1cd [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa032df7f>] ? cachefiles_lookup_object+0xcf/0x12a [cachefiles] [<ffffffffa0318165>] ? fscache_lookup_object+0x110/0x122 [fscache] [<ffffffffa03188c3>] ? fscache_object_slow_work_execute+0x590/0x6bc [fscache] [<ffffffff80278f82>] ? slow_work_thread+0x285/0x43a [<ffffffff8024a446>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x2e [<ffffffff80278cfd>] ? slow_work_thread+0x0/0x43a [<ffffffff8024a317>] ? kthread+0x54/0x81 [<ffffffff8020c93a>] ? child_rip+0xa/0x20 [<ffffffff8024a2c3>] ? kthread+0x0/0x81 [<ffffffff8020c930>] ? child_rip+0x0/0x20 CacheFiles: I/O Error: Readpage failed on backing file 200000000000810 FS-Cache: Cache cachefiles stopped due to I/O error Reported-by: Christian Kujau <lists@nerdbynature.de> Reported-by: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> Reported-by: Duc Le Minh <duclm.vn@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>	15 years ago
David Howells	a17754fb8c	CacheFiles: Don't write a full page if there's only a partial page to cache ... cachefiles_write_page() writes a full page to the backing file for the last page of the netfs file, even if the netfs file's last page is only a partial page. This causes the EOF on the backing file to be extended beyond the EOF of the netfs, and thus the backing file will be truncated by cachefiles_attr_changed() called from cachefiles_lookup_object(). So we need to limit the write we make to the backing file on that last page such that it doesn't push the EOF too far. Also, if a backing file that has a partial page at the end is expanded, we discard the partial page and refetch it on the basis that we then have a hole in the file with invalid data, and should the power go out... A better way to deal with this could be to record a note that the partial page contains invalid data until the correct data is written into it. This isn't a problem for netfs's that discard the whole backing file if the file size changes (such as NFS). Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>	15 years ago
David Howells	4fbf4291aa	FS-Cache: Allow the current state of all objects to be dumped ... Allow the current state of all fscache objects to be dumped by doing: cat /proc/fs/fscache/objects By default, all objects and all fields will be shown. This can be restricted by adding a suitable key to one of the caller's keyrings (such as the session keyring): keyctl add user fscache:objlist "<restrictions>" @s The <restrictions> are: K Show hexdump of object key (don't show if not given) A Show hexdump of object aux data (don't show if not given) And paired restrictions: C Show objects that have a cookie c Show objects that don't have a cookie B Show objects that are busy b Show objects that aren't busy W Show objects that have pending writes w Show objects that don't have pending writes R Show objects that have outstanding reads r Show objects that don't have outstanding reads S Show objects that have slow work queued s Show objects that don't have slow work queued If neither side of a restriction pair is given, then both are implied. For example: keyctl add user fscache:objlist KB @s shows objects that are busy, and lists their object keys, but does not dump their auxiliary data. It also implies "CcWwRrSs", but as 'B' is given, 'b' is not implied. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>	15 years ago
Christoph Hellwig	5af7926ff3	enforce ->sync_fs is only called for rw superblock ... Make sure a superblock really is writeable by checking MS_RDONLY under s_umount. sync_filesystems needed some re-arragement for that, but all but one sync_filesystem caller had the correct locking already so that we could add that check there. cachefiles grew s_umount locking. I've also added a WARN_ON to sync_filesystem to assert this for future callers. Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>	16 years ago
Jan Kara	60b0680fa2	vfs: Rename fsync_super() to sync_filesystem() (version 4) ... Rename the function so that it better describe what it really does. Also remove the unnecessary include of buffer_head.h. Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz> Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>	16 years ago
David Howells	911e690e70	CacheFiles: Fixup renamed filenames in comments in internal.h ... Fix up renamed filenames in comments in fs/cachefiles/internal.h. Originally, the files were all called cf-xxx.c, but they got renamed to just xxx.c. Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>	16 years ago
David Howells	9ae326a690	CacheFiles: A cache that backs onto a mounted filesystem ... Add an FS-Cache cache-backend that permits a mounted filesystem to be used as a backing store for the cache. CacheFiles uses a userspace daemon to do some of the cache management - such as reaping stale nodes and culling. This is called cachefilesd and lives in /sbin. The source for the daemon can be downloaded from: http://people.redhat.com/~dhowells/cachefs/cachefilesd.c And an example configuration from: http://people.redhat.com/~dhowells/cachefs/cachefilesd.conf The filesystem and data integrity of the cache are only as good as those of the filesystem providing the backing services. Note that CacheFiles does not attempt to journal anything since the journalling interfaces of the various filesystems are very specific in nature. CacheFiles creates a misc character device - "/dev/cachefiles" - that is used to communication with the daemon. Only one thing may have this open at once, and whilst it is open, a cache is at least partially in existence. The daemon opens this and sends commands down it to control the cache. CacheFiles is currently limited to a single cache. CacheFiles attempts to maintain at least a certain percentage of free space on the filesystem, shrinking the cache by culling the objects it contains to make space if necessary - see the "Cache Culling" section. This means it can be placed on the same medium as a live set of data, and will expand to make use of spare space and automatically contract when the set of data requires more space. ============ REQUIREMENTS ============ The use of CacheFiles and its daemon requires the following features to be available in the system and in the cache filesystem: - dnotify. - extended attributes (xattrs). - openat() and friends. - bmap() support on files in the filesystem (FIBMAP ioctl). - The use of bmap() to detect a partial page at the end of the file. It is strongly recommended that the "dir_index" option is enabled on Ext3 filesystems being used as a cache. ============= CONFIGURATION ============= The cache is configured by a script in /etc/cachefilesd.conf. These commands set up cache ready for use. The following script commands are available: (*) brun <N>% (*) bcull <N>% (*) bstop <N>% (*) frun <N>% (*) fcull <N>% (*) fstop <N>% Configure the culling limits. Optional. See the section on culling The defaults are 7% (run), 5% (cull) and 1% (stop) respectively. The commands beginning with a 'b' are file space (block) limits, those beginning with an 'f' are file count limits. (*) dir <path> Specify the directory containing the root of the cache. Mandatory. (*) tag <name> Specify a tag to FS-Cache to use in distinguishing multiple caches. Optional. The default is "CacheFiles". (*) debug <mask> Specify a numeric bitmask to control debugging in the kernel module. Optional. The default is zero (all off). The following values can be OR'd into the mask to collect various information: 1 Turn on trace of function entry (_enter() macros) 2 Turn on trace of function exit (_leave() macros) 4 Turn on trace of internal debug points (_debug()) This mask can also be set through sysfs, eg: echo 5 >/sys/modules/cachefiles/parameters/debug ================== STARTING THE CACHE ================== The cache is started by running the daemon. The daemon opens the cache device, configures the cache and tells it to begin caching. At that point the cache binds to fscache and the cache becomes live. The daemon is run as follows: /sbin/cachefilesd [-d]* [-s] [-n] [-f <configfile>] The flags are: (*) -d Increase the debugging level. This can be specified multiple times and is cumulative with itself. (*) -s Send messages to stderr instead of syslog. (*) -n Don't daemonise and go into background. (*) -f <configfile> Use an alternative configuration file rather than the default one. =============== THINGS TO AVOID =============== Do not mount other things within the cache as this will cause problems. The kernel module contains its own very cut-down path walking facility that ignores mountpoints, but the daemon can't avoid them. Do not create, rename or unlink files and directories in the cache whilst the cache is active, as this may cause the state to become uncertain. Renaming files in the cache might make objects appear to be other objects (the filename is part of the lookup key). Do not change or remove the extended attributes attached to cache files by the cache as this will cause the cache state management to get confused. Do not create files or directories in the cache, lest the cache get confused or serve incorrect data. Do not chmod files in the cache. The module creates things with minimal permissions to prevent random users being able to access them directly. ============= CACHE CULLING ============= The cache may need culling occasionally to make space. This involves discarding objects from the cache that have been used less recently than anything else. Culling is based on the access time of data objects. Empty directories are culled if not in use. Cache culling is done on the basis of the percentage of blocks and the percentage of files available in the underlying filesystem. There are six "limits": (*) brun (*) frun If the amount of free space and the number of available files in the cache rises above both these limits, then culling is turned off. (*) bcull (*) fcull If the amount of available space or the number of available files in the cache falls below either of these limits, then culling is started. (*) bstop (*) fstop If the amount of available space or the number of available files in the cache falls below either of these limits, then no further allocation of disk space or files is permitted until culling has raised things above these limits again. These must be configured thusly: 0 <= bstop < bcull < brun < 100 0 <= fstop < fcull < frun < 100 Note that these are percentages of available space and available files, and do _not_ appear as 100 minus the percentage displayed by the "df" program. The userspace daemon scans the cache to build up a table of cullable objects. These are then culled in least recently used order. A new scan of the cache is started as soon as space is made in the table. Objects will be skipped if their atimes have changed or if the kernel module says it is still using them. =============== CACHE STRUCTURE =============== The CacheFiles module will create two directories in the directory it was given: (*) cache/ (*) graveyard/ The active cache objects all reside in the first directory. The CacheFiles kernel module moves any retired or culled objects that it can't simply unlink to the graveyard from which the daemon will actually delete them. The daemon uses dnotify to monitor the graveyard directory, and will delete anything that appears therein. The module represents index objects as directories with the filename "I..." or "J...". Note that the "cache/" directory is itself a special index. Data objects are represented as files if they have no children, or directories if they do. Their filenames all begin "D..." or "E...". If represented as a directory, data objects will have a file in the directory called "data" that actually holds the data. Special objects are similar to data objects, except their filenames begin "S..." or "T...". If an object has children, then it will be represented as a directory. Immediately in the representative directory are a collection of directories named for hash values of the child object keys with an '@' prepended. Into this directory, if possible, will be placed the representations of the child objects: INDEX INDEX INDEX DATA FILES ========= ========== ================================= ================ cache/@4a/I03nfs/@30/Ji000000000000000--fHg8hi8400 cache/@4a/I03nfs/@30/Ji000000000000000--fHg8hi8400/@75/Es0g000w...DB1ry cache/@4a/I03nfs/@30/Ji000000000000000--fHg8hi8400/@75/Es0g000w...N22ry cache/@4a/I03nfs/@30/Ji000000000000000--fHg8hi8400/@75/Es0g000w...FP1ry If the key is so long that it exceeds NAME_MAX with the decorations added on to it, then it will be cut into pieces, the first few of which will be used to make a nest of directories, and the last one of which will be the objects inside the last directory. The names of the intermediate directories will have '+' prepended: J1223/@23/+xy...z/+kl...m/Epqr Note that keys are raw data, and not only may they exceed NAME_MAX in size, they may also contain things like '/' and NUL characters, and so they may not be suitable for turning directly into a filename. To handle this, CacheFiles will use a suitably printable filename directly and "base-64" encode ones that aren't directly suitable. The two versions of object filenames indicate the encoding: OBJECT TYPE PRINTABLE ENCODED =============== =============== =============== Index "I..." "J..." Data "D..." "E..." Special "S..." "T..." Intermediate directories are always "@" or "+" as appropriate. Each object in the cache has an extended attribute label that holds the object type ID (required to distinguish special objects) and the auxiliary data from the netfs. The latter is used to detect stale objects in the cache and update or retire them. Note that CacheFiles will erase from the cache any file it doesn't recognise or any file of an incorrect type (such as a FIFO file or a device file). ========================== SECURITY MODEL AND SELINUX ========================== CacheFiles is implemented to deal properly with the LSM security features of the Linux kernel and the SELinux facility. One of the problems that CacheFiles faces is that it is generally acting on behalf of a process, and running in that process's context, and that includes a security context that is not appropriate for accessing the cache - either because the files in the cache are inaccessible to that process, or because if the process creates a file in the cache, that file may be inaccessible to other processes. The way CacheFiles works is to temporarily change the security context (fsuid, fsgid and actor security label) that the process acts as - without changing the security context of the process when it the target of an operation performed by some other process (so signalling and suchlike still work correctly). When the CacheFiles module is asked to bind to its cache, it: (1) Finds the security label attached to the root cache directory and uses that as the security label with which it will create files. By default, this is: cachefiles_var_t (2) Finds the security label of the process which issued the bind request (presumed to be the cachefilesd daemon), which by default will be: cachefilesd_t and asks LSM to supply a security ID as which it should act given the daemon's label. By default, this will be: cachefiles_kernel_t SELinux transitions the daemon's security ID to the module's security ID based on a rule of this form in the policy. type_transition <daemon's-ID> kernel_t : process <module's-ID>; For instance: type_transition cachefilesd_t kernel_t : process cachefiles_kernel_t; The module's security ID gives it permission to create, move and remove files and directories in the cache, to find and access directories and files in the cache, to set and access extended attributes on cache objects, and to read and write files in the cache. The daemon's security ID gives it only a very restricted set of permissions: it may scan directories, stat files and erase files and directories. It may not read or write files in the cache, and so it is precluded from accessing the data cached therein; nor is it permitted to create new files in the cache. There are policy source files available in: http://people.redhat.com/~dhowells/fscache/cachefilesd-0.8.tar.bz2 and later versions. In that tarball, see the files: cachefilesd.te cachefilesd.fc cachefilesd.if They are built and installed directly by the RPM. If a non-RPM based system is being used, then copy the above files to their own directory and run: make -f /usr/share/selinux/devel/Makefile semodule -i cachefilesd.pp You will need checkpolicy and selinux-policy-devel installed prior to the build. By default, the cache is located in /var/fscache, but if it is desirable that it should be elsewhere, than either the above policy files must be altered, or an auxiliary policy must be installed to label the alternate location of the cache. For instructions on how to add an auxiliary policy to enable the cache to be located elsewhere when SELinux is in enforcing mode, please see: /usr/share/doc/cachefilesd-*/move-cache.txt When the cachefilesd rpm is installed; alternatively, the document can be found in the sources. ================== A NOTE ON SECURITY ================== CacheFiles makes use of the split security in the task_struct. It allocates its own task_security structure, and redirects current->act_as to point to it when it acts on behalf of another process, in that process's context. The reason it does this is that it calls vfs_mkdir() and suchlike rather than bypassing security and calling inode ops directly. Therefore the VFS and LSM may deny the CacheFiles access to the cache data because under some circumstances the caching code is running in the security context of whatever process issued the original syscall on the netfs. Furthermore, should CacheFiles create a file or directory, the security parameters with that object is created (UID, GID, security label) would be derived from that process that issued the system call, thus potentially preventing other processes from accessing the cache - including CacheFiles's cache management daemon (cachefilesd). What is required is to temporarily override the security of the process that issued the system call. We can't, however, just do an in-place change of the security data as that affects the process as an object, not just as a subject. This means it may lose signals or ptrace events for example, and affects what the process looks like in /proc. So CacheFiles makes use of a logical split in the security between the objective security (task->sec) and the subjective security (task->act_as). The objective security holds the intrinsic security properties of a process and is never overridden. This is what appears in /proc, and is what is used when a process is the target of an operation by some other process (SIGKILL for example). The subjective security holds the active security properties of a process, and may be overridden. This is not seen externally, and is used whan a process acts upon another object, for example SIGKILLing another process or opening a file. LSM hooks exist that allow SELinux (or Smack or whatever) to reject a request for CacheFiles to run in a context of a specific security label, or to create files and directories with another security label. This documentation is added by the patch to: Documentation/filesystems/caching/cachefiles.txt Signed-Off-By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com> Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com> Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>	16 years ago