diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/porting.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/porting.rst
index 331405f4b29ffd63429bbc7e01fce1768c12a163..da8073b592ff8583bcc6336bd7f12810f62786e6 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/porting.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/porting.rst
@@ -1070,3 +1070,11 @@ The list of children anchored in parent dentry got turned into hlist now.
 Field names got changed (->d_children/->d_sib instead of ->d_subdirs/->d_child
 for anchor/entries resp.), so any affected places will be immediately caught
 by compiler.
+
+---
+
+**mandatory**
+
+->d_delete() instances are now called for dentries with ->d_lock held
+and refcount equal to 0.  They are not permitted to drop/regain ->d_lock.
+None of in-tree instances did anything of that sort.  Make sure yours do not...
diff --git a/fs/dcache.c b/fs/dcache.c
index 80992e49561c008d1e86bf9ff78e95ca71fdd6bd..8ce0fe70f3033442ec5c358d94977d62c0d13a45 100644
--- a/fs/dcache.c
+++ b/fs/dcache.c
@@ -888,15 +888,14 @@ void dput(struct dentry *dentry)
 		}
 
 		/* Slow case: now with the dentry lock held */
-		dentry->d_lockref.count = 1;
 		rcu_read_unlock();
 
 		if (likely(retain_dentry(dentry))) {
-			dentry->d_lockref.count--;
 			spin_unlock(&dentry->d_lock);
 			return;
 		}
 
+		dentry->d_lockref.count = 1;
 		dentry = dentry_kill(dentry);
 	}
 }
@@ -921,13 +920,8 @@ void dput_to_list(struct dentry *dentry, struct list_head *list)
 		return;
 	}
 	rcu_read_unlock();
-	dentry->d_lockref.count = 1;
-	if (!retain_dentry(dentry)) {
-		--dentry->d_lockref.count;
+	if (!retain_dentry(dentry))
 		to_shrink_list(dentry, list);
-	} else {
-		--dentry->d_lockref.count;
-	}
 	spin_unlock(&dentry->d_lock);
 }