In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vfs: fix race between evice_inodes() and find_inode()&iput() Hi, all Recently I noticed a bug[1] in btrfs, after digged it into and I believe it'a race in vfs. Let's assume there's a inode (ie ino 261) with i_count 1 is called by iput(), and there's a concurrent thread calling generic_shutdown_super(). cpu0: cpu1: iput() // i_count is 1 ->spin_lock(inode) ->dec i_count to 0 ->iput_final() generic_shutdown_super() ->__inode_add_lru() ->evict_inodes() // cause some reason[2] ->if (atomic_read(inode->i_count)) continue; // return before // inode 261 passed the above check // list_lru_add_obj() // and then schedule out ->spin_unlock() // note here: the inode 261 // was still at sb list and hash list, // and I_FREEING|I_WILL_FREE was not been set btrfs_iget() // after some function calls ->find_inode() // found the above inode 261 ->spin_lock(inode) // check I_FREEING|I_WILL_FREE // and passed ->__iget() ->spin_unlock(inode) // schedule back ->spin_lock(inode) // check (I_NEW|I_FREEING|I_WILL_FREE) flags, // passed and set I_FREEING iput() ->spin_unlock(inode) ->spin_lock(inode) ->evict() // dec i_count to 0 ->iput_final() ->spin_unlock() ->evict() Now, we have two threads simultaneously evicting the same inode, which may trigger the BUG(inode->i_state & I_CLEAR) statement both within clear_inode() and iput(). To fix the bug, recheck the inode->i_count after holding i_lock. Because in the most scenarios, the first check is valid, and the overhead of spin_lock() can be reduced. If there is any misunderstanding, please let me know, thanks. [1]: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-btrfs/000000000000eabe1d0619c48986@google.com/ [2]: The reason might be 1. SB_ACTIVE was removed or 2. mapping_shrinkable() return false when I reproduced the bug.