filesystem freeze: allow SysRq emergency thaw to thaw frozen filesystems

Now that the filesystem freeze operation has been elevated to the VFS, and
is just an ioctl away, some sort of safety net for unintentionally frozen
root filesystems may be in order.

The timeout thaw originally proposed did not get merged, but perhaps
something like this would be useful in emergencies.

For example, freeze /path/to/mountpoint may freeze your root filesystem if
you forgot that you had that unmounted.

I chose 'j' as the last remaining character other than 'h' which is sort
of reserved for help (because help is generated on any unknown character).

I've tested this on a non-root fs with multiple (nested) freezers, as well
as on a system rendered unresponsive due to a frozen root fs.

[randy.dunlap@oracle.com: emergency thaw only if CONFIG_BLOCK enabled]
Signed-off-by: Eric Sandeen <sandeen@redhat.com>
Cc: Takashi Sato <t-sato@yk.jp.nec.com>
Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 5 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/sysrq.txt b/Documentation/sysrq.txt
index 9e592c718afb..afa2946892da 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysrq.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysrq.txt
@@ -81,6 +81,8 @@ On all -  write a character to /proc/sysrq-trigger.  e.g.:
 
 'i'     - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, except for init.
 
+'j'     - Forcibly "Just thaw it" - filesystems frozen by the FIFREEZE ioctl.
+
 'k'     - Secure Access Key (SAK) Kills all programs on the current virtual
           console. NOTE: See important comments below in SAK section.
 
@@ -160,6 +162,9 @@ t'E'rm and k'I'll are useful if you have some sort of runaway process you
 are unable to kill any other way, especially if it's spawning other
 processes.
 
+"'J'ust thaw it" is useful if your system becomes unresponsive due to a frozen
+(probably root) filesystem via the FIFREEZE ioctl.
+
 *  Sometimes SysRq seems to get 'stuck' after using it, what can I do?
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 That happens to me, also. I've found that tapping shift, alt, and control