fs: remove extra lookup in __lookup_hash

fs: remove extra lookup in __lookup_hash

Optimize lookup for create operations, where no dentry should often be
common-case. In cases where it is not, such as unlink, the added overhead
is much smaller than the removed.

Also, move comments about __d_lookup racyness to the __d_lookup call site.
d_lookup is intuitive; __d_lookup is what needs commenting. So in that same
vein, add kerneldoc comments to __d_lookup and clean up some of the comments:

- We are interested in how the RCU lookup works here, particularly with
  renames. Make that explicit, and point to the document where it is explained
  in more detail.
- RCU is pretty standard now, and macros make implementations pretty mindless.
  If we want to know about RCU barrier details, we look in RCU code.
- Delete some boring legacy comments because we don't care much about how the
  code used to work, more about the interesting parts of how it works now. So
  comments about lazy LRU may be interesting, but would better be done in the
  LRU or refcount management code.

Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin <npiggin@kernel.dk>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>

2 files changed, 51 insertions, 41 deletions

diff --git a/fs/dcache.c b/fs/dcache.c
index 4d13bf50b7b..d56a40b5a57 100644
--- a/fs/dcache.c
+++ b/fs/dcache.c
@@ -1332,31 +1332,13 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(d_add_ci);
  * d_lookup - search for a dentry
  * @parent: parent dentry
  * @name: qstr of name we wish to find
+ * Returns: dentry, or NULL
  *
- * Searches the children of the parent dentry for the name in question. If
- * the dentry is found its reference count is incremented and the dentry
- * is returned. The caller must use dput to free the entry when it has
- * finished using it. %NULL is returned on failure.
- *
- * __d_lookup is dcache_lock free. The hash list is protected using RCU.
- * Memory barriers are used while updating and doing lockless traversal. 
- * To avoid races with d_move while rename is happening, d_lock is used.
- *
- * Overflows in memcmp(), while d_move, are avoided by keeping the length
- * and name pointer in one structure pointed by d_qstr.
- *
- * rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock() are used to disable preemption while
- * lookup is going on.
- *
- * The dentry unused LRU is not updated even if lookup finds the required dentry
- * in there. It is updated in places such as prune_dcache, shrink_dcache_sb,
- * select_parent and __dget_locked. This laziness saves lookup from dcache_lock
- * acquisition.
- *
- * d_lookup() is protected against the concurrent renames in some unrelated
- * directory using the seqlockt_t rename_lock.
+ * d_lookup searches the children of the parent dentry for the name in
+ * question. If the dentry is found its reference count is incremented and the
+ * dentry is returned. The caller must use dput to free the entry when it has
+ * finished using it. %NULL is returned if the dentry does not exist.
  */
-
 struct dentry * d_lookup(struct dentry * parent, struct qstr * name)
 {
 	struct dentry * dentry = NULL;
@@ -1372,6 +1354,21 @@ struct dentry * d_lookup(struct dentry * parent, struct qstr * name)
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(d_lookup);
 
+/*
+ * __d_lookup - search for a dentry (racy)
+ * @parent: parent dentry
+ * @name: qstr of name we wish to find
+ * Returns: dentry, or NULL
+ *
+ * __d_lookup is like d_lookup, however it may (rarely) return a
+ * false-negative result due to unrelated rename activity.
+ *
+ * __d_lookup is slightly faster by avoiding rename_lock read seqlock,
+ * however it must be used carefully, eg. with a following d_lookup in
+ * the case of failure.
+ *
+ * __d_lookup callers must be commented.
+ */
 struct dentry * __d_lookup(struct dentry * parent, struct qstr * name)
 {
 	unsigned int len = name->len;
@@ -1382,6 +1379,19 @@ struct dentry * __d_lookup(struct dentry * parent, struct qstr * name)
 	struct hlist_node *node;
 	struct dentry *dentry;
 
+	/*
+	 * The hash list is protected using RCU.
+	 *
+	 * Take d_lock when comparing a candidate dentry, to avoid races
+	 * with d_move().
+	 *
+	 * It is possible that concurrent renames can mess up our list
+	 * walk here and result in missing our dentry, resulting in the
+	 * false-negative result. d_lookup() protects against concurrent
+	 * renames using rename_lock seqlock.
+	 *
+	 * See Documentation/vfs/dcache-locking.txt for more details.
+	 */
 	rcu_read_lock();
 	
 	hlist_for_each_entry_rcu(dentry, node, head, d_hash) {
@@ -1396,8 +1406,8 @@ struct dentry * __d_lookup(struct dentry * parent, struct qstr * name)
 
 		/*
 		 * Recheck the dentry after taking the lock - d_move may have
-		 * changed things.  Don't bother checking the hash because we're
-		 * about to compare the whole name anyway.
+		 * changed things. Don't bother checking the hash because
+		 * we're about to compare the whole name anyway.
 		 */
 		if (dentry->d_parent != parent)
 			goto next;
diff --git a/fs/namei.c b/fs/namei.c
index b815a4d2e1d..11de7c39ff7 100644
--- a/fs/namei.c
+++ b/fs/namei.c
@@ -735,6 +735,11 @@ static int do_lookup(struct nameidata *nd, struct qstr *name,
 			return err;
 	}
 
+	/*
+	 * Rename seqlock is not required here because in the off chance
+	 * of a false negative due to a concurrent rename, we're going to
+	 * do the non-racy lookup, below.
+	 */
 	dentry = __d_lookup(nd->path.dentry, name);
 	if (!dentry)
 		goto need_lookup;
@@ -754,17 +759,13 @@ need_lookup:
 	mutex_lock(&dir->i_mutex);
 	/*
 	 * First re-do the cached lookup just in case it was created
-	 * while we waited for the directory semaphore..
-	 *
-	 * FIXME! This could use version numbering or similar to
-	 * avoid unnecessary cache lookups.
-	 *
-	 * The "dcache_lock" is purely to protect the RCU list walker
-	 * from concurrent renames at this point (we mustn't get false
-	 * negatives from the RCU list walk here, unlike the optimistic
-	 * fast walk).
+	 * while we waited for the directory semaphore, or the first
+	 * lookup failed due to an unrelated rename.
 	 *
-	 * so doing d_lookup() (with seqlock), instead of lockfree __d_lookup
+	 * This could use version numbering or similar to avoid unnecessary
+	 * cache lookups, but then we'd have to do the first lookup in the
+	 * non-racy way. However in the common case here, everything should
+	 * be hot in cache, so would it be a big win?
 	 */
 	dentry = d_lookup(parent, name);
 	if (likely(!dentry)) {
@@ -1136,13 +1137,12 @@ static struct dentry *__lookup_hash(struct qstr *name,
 			goto out;
 	}
 
-	dentry = __d_lookup(base, name);
-
-	/* lockess __d_lookup may fail due to concurrent d_move()
-	 * in some unrelated directory, so try with d_lookup
+	/*
+	 * Don't bother with __d_lookup: callers are for creat as
+	 * well as unlink, so a lot of the time it would cost
+	 * a double lookup.
 	 */
-	if (!dentry)
-		dentry = d_lookup(base, name);
+	dentry = d_lookup(base, name);
 
 	if (dentry && dentry->d_op && dentry->d_op->d_revalidate)
 		dentry = do_revalidate(dentry, nd);