Possible race condition in pg_mkdir_p()? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

We found a race condition in pg_mkdir_p(), here is a simple reproducer:

    #!/bin/sh
   
    basedir=pgdata
    datadir=$basedir/a/b/c/d/e/f/g/h/i/j/k/l/m/n/o/p/q/r/s/t/u/v/w/x/y/z
    logdir=$basedir/logs
    n=2
   
    rm -rf $basedir
    mkdir -p $logdir
   
    # init databases concurrently, they will all try to create the parent dirs
    for i in `seq $n`; do
          initdb -D $datadir/$i >$logdir/$i.log 2>&1 &
    done
   
    wait
   
    # there is a chance one of the initdb commands failed to create the datadir
    grep 'could not create directory' $logdir/*

The logic in pg_mkdir_p() is as below:

        /* check for pre-existing directory */
        if (stat(path, &sb) == 0)
        {
            if (!S_ISDIR(sb.st_mode))
            {
                if (last)
                    errno = EEXIST;
                else
                    errno = ENOTDIR;
                retval = -1;
                break;
            }
        }
        else if (mkdir(path, last ? omode : S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG | S_IRWXO) < 0)
        {
            retval = -1;
            break;
        }

This seems buggy as it first checks the existence of the dir and makes the dir if it does not exist yet, however when executing concurrently a possible race condition can be as below:

A: does a/ exists? no
B: does a/ exists? no
A: try to create a/, succeed
B: try to create a/, failed as it already exists

To prevent the race condition we could mkdir() directly, if it returns -1 and errno is EEXIST then check whether it's really a dir with stat().  In fact this is what is done in the `mkdir -p` command: https://github.com/coreutils/gnulib/blob/b5a9fa677847081c9b4f26908272f122b15df8b9/lib/mkdir-p.c#L130-L164

By the way, some callers of pg_mkdir_p() checks for EEXIST explicitly, such as in pg_basebackup.c:

        if (pg_mkdir_p(statusdir, pg_dir_create_mode) != 0 && errno != EEXIST)
        {
            pg_log_error("could not create directory \"%s\": %m", statusdir);
            exit(1);
        }

This is still wrong with current code logic, because when the statusdir is a file the errno is also EEXIST, but it can pass the check here.  Even if we fix pg_mkdir_p() by following the `mkdir -p` way the errno check here is still wrong.

Best Regards

Ning