kernfs, sysfs, driver-core: implement kernfs_remove_self() and its wrappers

Sometimes it's necessary to implement a node which wants to delete
nodes including itself.  This isn't straightforward because of kernfs
active reference.  While a file operation is in progress, an active
reference is held and kernfs_remove() waits for all such references to
drain before completing.  For a self-deleting node, this is a deadlock
as kernfs_remove() ends up waiting for an active reference that itself
is sitting on top of.

This currently is worked around in the sysfs layer using
sysfs_schedule_callback() which makes such removals asynchronous.
While it works, it's rather cumbersome and inherently breaks
synchronicity of the operation - the file operation which triggered
the operation may complete before the removal is finished (or even
started) and the removal may fail asynchronously.  If a removal
operation is immmediately followed by another operation which expects
the specific name to be available (e.g. removal followed by rename
onto the same name), there's no way to make the latter operation
reliable.

The thing is there's no inherent reason for this to be asynchrnous.
All that's necessary to do this synchronous is a dedicated operation
which drops its own active ref and deactivates self.  This patch
implements kernfs_remove_self() and its wrappers in sysfs and driver
core.  kernfs_remove_self() is to be called from one of the file
operations, drops the active ref the task is holding, removes the self
node, and restores active ref to the dead node so that the ref is
balanced afterwards.  __kernfs_remove() is updated so that it takes an
early exit if the target node is already fully removed so that the
active ref restored by kernfs_remove_self() after removal doesn't
confuse the deactivation path.

This makes implementing self-deleting nodes very easy.  The normal
removal path doesn't even need to be changed to use
kernfs_remove_self() for the self-deleting node.  The method can
invoke kernfs_remove_self() on itself before proceeding the normal
removal path.  kernfs_remove() invoked on the node by the normal
deletion path will simply be ignored.

This will replace sysfs_schedule_callback().  A subtle feature of
sysfs_schedule_callback() is that it collapses multiple invocations -
even if multiple removals are triggered, the removal callback is run
only once.  An equivalent effect can be achieved by testing the return
value of kernfs_remove_self() - only the one which gets %true return
value should proceed with actual deletion.  All other instances of
kernfs_remove_self() will wait till the enclosing kernfs operation
which invoked the winning instance of kernfs_remove_self() finishes
and then return %false.  This trivially makes all users of
kernfs_remove_self() automatically show correct synchronous behavior
even when there are multiple concurrent operations - all "echo 1 >
delete" instances will finish only after the whole operation is
completed by one of the instances.

Note that manipulation of active ref is implemented in separate public
functions - kernfs_[un]break_active_protection().
kernfs_remove_self() is the only user at the moment but this will be
used to cater to more complex cases.

v2: For !CONFIG_SYSFS, dummy version kernfs_remove_self() was missing
    and sysfs_remove_file_self() had incorrect return type.  Fix it.
    Reported by kbuild test bot.

v3: kernfs_[un]break_active_protection() separated out from
    kernfs_remove_self() and exposed as public API.

Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu>
Cc: kbuild test robot <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

1 files changed, 7 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/sysfs.h b/include/linux/sysfs.h
index 30b2ebee6439..bd96c603ab6c 100644
--- a/include/linux/sysfs.h
+++ b/include/linux/sysfs.h
@@ -198,6 +198,7 @@ int __must_check sysfs_chmod_file(struct kobject *kobj,
 				  const struct attribute *attr, umode_t mode);
 void sysfs_remove_file_ns(struct kobject *kobj, const struct attribute *attr,
 			  const void *ns);
+bool sysfs_remove_file_self(struct kobject *kobj, const struct attribute *attr);
 void sysfs_remove_files(struct kobject *kobj, const struct attribute **attr);
 
 int __must_check sysfs_create_bin_file(struct kobject *kobj,
@@ -301,6 +302,12 @@ static inline void sysfs_remove_file_ns(struct kobject *kobj,
 {
 }
 
+static inline bool sysfs_remove_file_self(struct kobject *kobj,
+					  const struct attribute *attr)
+{
+	return false;
+}
+
 static inline void sysfs_remove_files(struct kobject *kobj,
 				     const struct attribute **attr)
 {