[Cluster-devel] [PATCH] [GFS2] bz 276631 : GFS2: chmod hung

[Bob Peterson]

The problem boiled down to a race between the gdlm_init_threads()
function initializing thread1 and its setting of blist = 1.
Essentially, "if (current == ls->thread1)" was checked by the thread
before the thread creator set ls->thread1.

Since thread1 is the only thread who is allowed to work on the
blocking queue, and since neither thread thought it was thread1, no one
was working on the queue.  So everything just sat.

This patch reuses the ls->async_lock spin_lock to fix the race,
and it fixes the problem.  I've done more than 2000 iterations of the
loop that was recreating the failure and it seems to work.

Dave Teigland brought up the question of whether we should do this
another way.  For example, by checking for the task name "lock_dlm1"
instead.  I'm open to opinions.