threads / patch / 35216

v2sha1_file.c:create_tmpfile(): Fix race when creating loose object dirs

Subject: [PATCH v2] sha1_file.c:create_tmpfile(): Fix race when creating loose object dirs

## tl;dr

3 messages between Oct 27, 2013 and Oct 30, 2013. Diffs are folded; open one to read it.

replies: 2people: 2as markdown or json

Johan Herland· Oct 27, 2013, 11:35 UTC · lore

There are cases (e.g. when running concurrent fetches in a repo) where multiple Git processes concurrently attempt to create loose objects within the same objects/XX/ dir. The creation of the loose object files is (AFAICS) safe from races, but the creation of the objects/XX/ dir in which the loose objects reside is unsafe, for example:

Two concurrent fetches - A and B. As part of its fetch, A needs to store 12aaaaa as a loose object. B, on the other hand, needs to store 12bbbbb as a loose object. The objects/12 directory does not already exist. Concurrently, both A and B determine that they need to create the objects/12 directory (because their first call to git_mkstemp_mode() within create_tmpfile() fails witn ENOENT). One of them - let's say A - executes the following mkdir() call before the other. This first call returns success, and A moves on. When B gets around to calling mkdir(), it fails with EEXIST, because A won the race. The mkdir() error causes B to return -1 from create_tmpfile(), which propagates all the way, resulting in the fetch failing with:

  error: unable to create temporary file: File exists
  fatal: failed to write object
  fatal: unpack-objects failed

Although it's hard to add a testcase reproducing this issue, it's easy to provoke if we insert a sleep after the

  if (mkdir(buffer, 0777) || adjust_shared_perm(buffer))
      return -1;
block, and then run two concurrent "git fetch"es against the same repo.

The fix is to simply handle mkdir() failing with EEXIST as a success. If EEXIST is somehow returned for the wrong reasons (because the relevant objects/XX is not a directory, or is otherwise unsuitable for object storage), the following call to adjust_shared_perm(), or ultimately the retried call to git_mkstemp_mode() will fail, and we end up returning error from create_tmpfile() in any case.

Note that there are still cases where two users with unsuitable umasks in a shared repo can end up in two races where one user first wins the mkdir() race to create an objects/XX/ directory, and then the other user wins the adjust_shared_perms() race to chmod() that directory, but fails because it is (transiently, until the first users completes its chmod()) unwriteable to the other user. However, (an equivalent of) this race also exists before this patch, and is made no worse by this patch.

Signed-off-by: Johan Herland <johan@herland.net>
---

I didn't see this in the latest "What's cooking", so here's a resend, with an expanded commit message to reflect our discussion. The patch itself is unchanged.

In order to fix the remaining race, I assume we have to ensure the dir creation obeys the same rules as the object creation, i.e. that there are only two possible states at any time:

 - The directory does not exist
 - The directory exists with the correct permissons

To achieve this, I guess we have to follow the same procedure we do for loose object creation:

 1. Create a temporary directory with a unique name (mkdtemp?)
 2. Adjust permissions
 3. Rename into place
Can this be done sufficiently atomically across all platforms?
...Johan
 sha1_file.c | 4 +++-
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
Show changes to sha1_file.c +3 −1
diff --git a/sha1_file.c b/sha1_file.c
index f80bbe4..00ffffe 100644
--- a/sha1_file.c
+++ b/sha1_file.c
@@ -2857,7 +2857,9 @@ static int create_tmpfile(char *buffer, size_t bufsiz, const char *filename)
 		/* Make sure the directory exists */
 		memcpy(buffer, filename, dirlen);
 		buffer[dirlen-1] = 0;
-		if (mkdir(buffer, 0777) || adjust_shared_perm(buffer))
+		if (mkdir(buffer, 0777) && errno != EEXIST)
+			return -1;
+		if (adjust_shared_perm(buffer))
 			return -1;
 
 		/* Try again */
-- 
1.8.4.653.g2df02b3
Jeff King· Oct 30, 2013, 09:19 UTC · re: Johan Herland · lore

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1_file.c:create_tmpfile(): Fix race when creating loose object dirs

On Sun, Oct 27, 2013 at 12:35:43PM +0100, Johan Herland wrote:
> I didn't see this in the latest "What's cooking", so here's a resend, with
> an expanded commit message to reflect our discussion. The patch itself is
> unchanged.
Thanks, your expanded description looks correct to me.
Show 18 quoted lines
> In order to fix the remaining race, I assume we have to ensure the dir
> creation obeys the same rules as the object creation, i.e. that there are
> only two possible states at any time:
> 
>  - The directory does not exist
> 
>  - The directory exists with the correct permissons
> 
> To achieve this, I guess we have to follow the same procedure we do for
> loose object creation:
> 
>  1. Create a temporary directory with a unique name (mkdtemp?)
> 
>  2. Adjust permissions
> 
>  3. Rename into place
> 
> Can this be done sufficiently atomically across all platforms?

Yeah, I think that is the only way to do it. I do not know offhand of any platforms that have problems with atomic directory renames, though I would not be surprised if some network filesystems don't handle it well.

I'd also be fine if you want to simply leave it at your patch for now and let somebody who cares more about the other race worry about it later.

-Peff
Jeff King· Oct 30, 2013, 09:30 UTC · re: Jeff King · lore

Re: [PATCH v2] sha1_file.c:create_tmpfile(): Fix race when creating loose object dirs

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 05:19:27AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
Show 14 quoted lines
> > To achieve this, I guess we have to follow the same procedure we do for
> > loose object creation:
> > 
> >  1. Create a temporary directory with a unique name (mkdtemp?)
> > 
> >  2. Adjust permissions
> > 
> >  3. Rename into place
> > 
> > Can this be done sufficiently atomically across all platforms?
> 
> Yeah, I think that is the only way to do it. I do not know offhand of
> any platforms that have problems with atomic directory renames, though I
> would not be surprised if some network filesystems don't handle it well.

Actually, thinking on this more, we do not want "rename into place" semantics, as that usually implies overwrite. We would prefer a hard-link solution, where only one linker "wins", and the other gets EEXIST. But you cannot hard-link directories.

POSIX does specify that rename() should return EEXIST rather than overwriting if the destination directory exists and is not empty. So in theory that would work, as we would then just be racing against the other process creating the actual object (and either we replace the directory with ours before they write the object, or they write the object first and we get EEXIST).

But I don't know how well that is followed in the real world.
-Peff

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