[PATCH v5 bpf-next 0/5] bpf path iterator

[Song Liu]

> On Jul 9, 2025, at 9:06 AM, Mickaël Salaün <mic at digikod.net> wrote:\

[...]

>> If necessary, we hide “root" inside @data. This is good. 
>> 
>>> @path would be updated with latest ancestor path (e.g. @root).
>> 
>> Update @path to the last ancestor and hold proper references. 
>> I missed this part earlier. With this feature, vfs_walk_ancestors 
>> should work usable with open-codeed bpf path iterator. 
>> 
>> I have a question about this behavior with RCU walk. IIUC, RCU 
>> walk does not hold reference to @ancestor when calling walk_cb().
> 
> I think a reference to the mount should be held, but not necessarily to
> the dentry if we are still in the same mount as the original path.

If we update @path and do path_put() after the walk, we have to hold 
reference to both the mnt and the dentry, no? 

> 
>> If walk_cb() returns false, shall vfs_walk_ancestors() then
>> grab a reference on @ancestor? This feels a bit weird to me.
> 
> If walk_cb() checks for a root, it will return false when the path will
> match, and the caller would expect to get this root path, right?

If the user want to walk to the global root, walk_cb() may not 
return false at all, IIUC. walk_cb() may also return false on 
other conditions. 

> 
> In general, it's safer to always have the same behavior when holding or
> releasing a reference.  I think the caller should then always call
> path_put() after vfs_walk_ancestors() whatever the return code is.
> 
>> Maybe “updating @path to the last ancestor” should only apply to
>> LOOKUP_RCU==false case? 
>> 
>>> @flags could contain LOOKUP_RCU or not, which enables us to have
>>> walk_cb() not-RCU compatible.
>>> 
>>> When passing LOOKUP_RCU, if the first call to vfs_walk_ancestors()
>>> failed with -ECHILD, the caller can restart the walk by calling
>>> vfs_walk_ancestors() again but without LOOKUP_RCU.
>> 
>> 
>> Given we want callers to handle -ECHILD and call vfs_walk_ancestors
>> again without LOOKUP_RCU, I think we should keep @path not changed
>> With LOOKUP_RCU==true, and only update it to the last ancestor 
>> when LOOKUP_RCU==false.
> 
> As Neil said, we don't want to explicitly pass LOOKUP_RCU as a public
> flag.  Instead, walk_cb() should never sleep (and then potentially be
> called under RCU by the vfs_walk_ancestors() implementation).

How should the user handle -ECHILD without LOOKUP_RCU flag? Say the
following code in landlocked:

/* Try RCU walk first */
err = vfs_walk_ancestors(path, ll_cb, data, LOOKUP_RCU);

if (err == -ECHILD) {
	struct path walk_path = *path;

	/* reset any data changed by the walk */
	reset_data(data);
	
	/* now do ref-walk */
	err = vfs_walk_ancestors(&walk_path, ll_cb, data, 0);
}

Or do you mean vfs_walk_ancestors will never return -ECHILD?
Then we need vfs_walk_ancestors to call reset_data logic, right?

Thanks,
Song