Kernel panic is observed on RHEL 7 servers due to BUG_ON(inode->i_data.nrpages) with panic message "kernel BUG at fs/inode.c:329"

Issue

• A kernel panic is observed on RHEL 7.4 kernels with following traces :

[798748.376263] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[798748.376347] kernel BUG at fs/inode.c:519!
[798748.376426] invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP 
[798748.376506] Modules linked in: dm_snapshot dm_bufio tun bridge stp llc nf_conntrack_ftp nf_log_ipv4 nf_log_common xt_LOG xt_limit vmw_vsock_vmci_transport nf_conntrack_ipv4 vsock nf_defrag_ipv4 xt_comment xt_conntrack nf_conntrack iptable_filter coretemp ext4 crc32_pclmul mbcache ghash_clmulni_intel jbd2 aesni_intel lrw gf128mul glue_helper ablk_helper cryptd ppdev vmw_balloon pcspkr joydev sg vmw_vmci parport_pc shpchp i2c_piix4 parport binfmt_misc ip_tables xfs libcrc32c sr_mod cdrom ata_generic pata_acpi sd_mod crc_t10dif crct10dif_generic drm_kms_helper syscopyarea sysfillrect sysimgblt fb_sys_fops ttm drm crct10dif_pclmul crct10dif_common serio_raw crc32c_intel ata_piix i2c_core vmxnet3 libata vmw_pvscsi floppy dm_mirror dm_region_hash dm_log dm_mod
[798748.377544] CPU: 1 PID: 29076 Comm: postgres Tainted: G        W      ------------   3.10.0-693.11.1.el7.x86_64 #1
[798748.377718] Hardware name: VMware, Inc. VMware Virtual Platform/440BX Desktop Reference Platform, BIOS 6.00 09/21/2015
[798748.377892] task: ffff880423684480 ti: ffff8800b9364000 task.ti: ffff8800b9364000
[798748.378045] RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff8121c4a7>]  [<ffffffff8121c4a7>] clear_inode+0x77/0x90
[798748.378204] RSP: 0018:ffff8800b9367da8  EFLAGS: 00010006
[798748.378291] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff8800bb7e13e0 RCX: 00000000c0000100
[798748.378442] RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: ffff880423684480 RDI: ffff8800bb7e1548
[798748.378593] RBP: ffff8800b9367db8 R08: ffff8800b9364000 R09: 00000000000020a5
[798748.378744] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff8800bb7e1548
[798748.378899] R13: ffff8800bb7e13c8 R14: ffff8800bb7e13e0 R15: ffff88017a1405a0
[798748.379050] FS:  00007f782bc1b740(0000) GS:ffff88043fc80000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[798748.379208] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 000000008005003b
[798748.379298] CR2: 00007f6e14b19128 CR3: 00000000364b4000 CR4: 00000000000007e0
[798748.379486] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
[798748.379668] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000ffff0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
[798748.379824] Stack:
[798748.379890]  ffff8800bb7e13c8 ffff8800bb7e13c8 ffff8800b9367de8 ffffffff8119e2b7
[798748.380048]  ffff8800bb7e13e0 ffff8800bb7e14e8 ffffffff816e76a0 ffffffff816e76a0
[798748.380205]  ffff8800b9367e10 ffffffff8121d5a9 ffff8800bb7e13e0 ffff8800bb7e1468
[798748.380362] Call Trace:
[798748.380432]  [<ffffffff8119e2b7>] shmem_evict_inode+0x87/0x130
[798748.380524]  [<ffffffff8121d5a9>] evict+0xa9/0x180
[798748.380610]  [<ffffffff8121deb9>] iput+0xf9/0x190
[798748.380695]  [<ffffffff81218658>] dentry_kill+0x168/0x1b0
[798748.380784]  [<ffffffff812186fe>] dput+0x5e/0xd0
[798748.380869]  [<ffffffff81202e4b>] __fput+0x17b/0x260
[798748.380955]  [<ffffffff8120301e>] ____fput+0xe/0x10
[798748.381042]  [<ffffffff810ad257>] task_work_run+0xa7/0xf0
[798748.381131]  [<ffffffff8102ab62>] do_notify_resume+0x92/0xb0
[798748.381223]  [<ffffffff816b533d>] int_signal+0x12/0x17
[798748.381309] Code: 01 00 00 48 39 83 e8 01 00 00 75 25 48 8b 83 a0 00 00 00 a8 20 74 18 a8 40 75 12 48 c7 83 a0 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 5b 41 5c 5d c3 <0f> 0b 0f 0b 0f 0b 0f 0b 0f 0b 0f 1f 44 00 00 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 
[798748.381653] RIP  [<ffffffff8121c4a7>] clear_inode+0x77/0x90
[798748.381744]  RSP <ffff8800b9367da8>