ext4: document lock ordering

We have enough locks that it's probably worth documenting the lock
ordering rules we have in ext4.

Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>

1 files changed, 30 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/fs/ext4/super.c b/fs/ext4/super.c
index 493370e6590e..486e869bd583 100644
--- a/fs/ext4/super.c
+++ b/fs/ext4/super.c
@@ -80,6 +80,36 @@ static void ext4_destroy_lazyinit_thread(void);
 static void ext4_unregister_li_request(struct super_block *sb);
 static void ext4_clear_request_list(void);
 
+/*
+ * Lock ordering
+ *
+ * Note the difference between i_mmap_sem (EXT4_I(inode)->i_mmap_sem) and
+ * i_mmap_rwsem (inode->i_mmap_rwsem)!
+ *
+ * page fault path:
+ * mmap_sem -> sb_start_pagefault -> i_mmap_sem (r) -> transaction start ->
+ *   page lock -> i_data_sem (rw)
+ *
+ * buffered write path:
+ * sb_start_write -> i_mutex -> mmap_sem
+ * sb_start_write -> i_mutex -> transaction start -> page lock ->
+ *   i_data_sem (rw)
+ *
+ * truncate:
+ * sb_start_write -> i_mutex -> EXT4_STATE_DIOREAD_LOCK (w) -> i_mmap_sem (w) ->
+ *   i_mmap_rwsem (w) -> page lock
+ * sb_start_write -> i_mutex -> EXT4_STATE_DIOREAD_LOCK (w) -> i_mmap_sem (w) ->
+ *   transaction start -> i_data_sem (rw)
+ *
+ * direct IO:
+ * sb_start_write -> i_mutex -> EXT4_STATE_DIOREAD_LOCK (r) -> mmap_sem
+ * sb_start_write -> i_mutex -> EXT4_STATE_DIOREAD_LOCK (r) ->
+ *   transaction start -> i_data_sem (rw)
+ *
+ * writepages:
+ * transaction start -> page lock(s) -> i_data_sem (rw)
+ */
+
 #if !defined(CONFIG_EXT2_FS) && !defined(CONFIG_EXT2_FS_MODULE) && defined(CONFIG_EXT4_USE_FOR_EXT2)
 static struct file_system_type ext2_fs_type = {
         .owner          = THIS_MODULE,