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VFS: prepare for changes to directory locking

From:  NeilBrown <neilb-AT-ownmail.net>
To:  Alexander Viro <viro-AT-zeniv.linux.org.uk>, Christian Brauner <brauner-AT-kernel.org>
Subject:  VFS: prepare for changes to directory locking
Date:  Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:29:00 +1000
Message-ID:  <20260701233128.3356519-1-neilb@ownmail.net>
Cc:  Jan Kara <jack-AT-suse.cz>, linux-fsdevel-AT-vger.kernel.org
Archive-link:  Article

These patches are part of some prep work to allow changes to directory
locking.
The short term goal is to invert the locking order between d_alloc_parallel() 
and inode_lock() so that d_alloc_parallel() can (only) be called without
holding inode_lock().  This particularly requires filesystems not to use 
d_drop() in the middle of an operation, which particularly requires the d_splice_alias()
change.

As it will require d_alloc_parallel() to NOT be called under the inode
lock, d_alloc_trylock() is added which CAN be used when failure is safe
(dcache priming in readdir).

I have other related patches which make changes to lookup_open() and
related code but I think it best to wait for the O_CREAT|O_DIRECTORY
patches to land first (unless it is decided that they won't land).

If these patches can land in a stable branch, I can start making changes
to various filesystems which depend on these.

Thanks,
NeilBrown

 [PATCH 1/4] VFS: fix various typos in documentation for
 [PATCH 2/4] VFS: enhance d_splice_alias() to handle in-lookup
 [PATCH 3/4] VFS: introduce d_alloc_trylock()
 [PATCH 4/4] VFS: add d_duplicate()



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