diff --git a/fs/dcache.c b/fs/dcache.c
index 94b737311b61dab8c51e6ab8b561a319a906da9e..71969505e82e6e5e3c745c157c62446c22625d53 100644
--- a/fs/dcache.c
+++ b/fs/dcache.c
@@ -2564,7 +2564,15 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(d_rehash);
 
 static inline unsigned start_dir_add(struct inode *dir)
 {
-
+	/*
+	 * The caller holds a spinlock (dentry::d_lock). On !PREEMPT_RT
+	 * kernels spin_lock() implicitly disables preemption, but not on
+	 * PREEMPT_RT.  So for RT it has to be done explicitly to protect
+	 * the sequence count write side critical section against a reader
+	 * or another writer preempting, which would result in a live lock.
+	 */
+	if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT))
+		preempt_disable();
 	for (;;) {
 		unsigned n = dir->i_dir_seq;
 		if (!(n & 1) && cmpxchg(&dir->i_dir_seq, n, n + 1) == n)
@@ -2576,6 +2584,8 @@ static inline unsigned start_dir_add(struct inode *dir)
 static inline void end_dir_add(struct inode *dir, unsigned n)
 {
 	smp_store_release(&dir->i_dir_seq, n + 2);
+	if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT))
+		preempt_enable();
 }
 
 static void d_wait_lookup(struct dentry *dentry)