linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v9 16/24] mm: Introduce __page_add_new_anon

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Mon, 2 Apr 2018 16:57:03 -0700 (PDT)
From:   David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>
To:     Laurent Dufour <ldufour@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
cc:     paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, peterz@...radead.org,
        akpm@...ux-foundation.org, kirill@...temov.name,
        ak@...ux.intel.com, mhocko@...nel.org, dave@...olabs.net,
        jack@...e.cz, Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        benh@...nel.crashing.org, mpe@...erman.id.au, paulus@...ba.org,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, hpa@...or.com,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>,
        Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@...il.com>,
        Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
        Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@...il.com>,
        kemi.wang@...el.com, sergey.senozhatsky.work@...il.com,
        Daniel Jordan <daniel.m.jordan@...cle.com>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        haren@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, khandual@...ux.vnet.ibm.com,
        npiggin@...il.com, bsingharora@...il.com,
        Tim Chen <tim.c.chen@...ux.intel.com>,
        linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org, x86@...nel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v9 16/24] mm: Introduce __page_add_new_anon_rmap()

On Tue, 13 Mar 2018, Laurent Dufour wrote:

> When dealing with speculative page fault handler, we may race with VMA
> being split or merged. In this case the vma->vm_start and vm->vm_end
> fields may not match the address the page fault is occurring.
> 
> This can only happens when the VMA is split but in that case, the
> anon_vma pointer of the new VMA will be the same as the original one,
> because in __split_vma the new->anon_vma is set to src->anon_vma when
> *new = *vma.
> 
> So even if the VMA boundaries are not correct, the anon_vma pointer is
> still valid.
> 
> If the VMA has been merged, then the VMA in which it has been merged
> must have the same anon_vma pointer otherwise the merge can't be done.
> 
> So in all the case we know that the anon_vma is valid, since we have
> checked before starting the speculative page fault that the anon_vma
> pointer is valid for this VMA and since there is an anon_vma this
> means that at one time a page has been backed and that before the VMA
> is cleaned, the page table lock would have to be grab to clean the
> PTE, and the anon_vma field is checked once the PTE is locked.
> 
> This patch introduce a new __page_add_new_anon_rmap() service which
> doesn't check for the VMA boundaries, and create a new inline one
> which do the check.
> 
> When called from a page fault handler, if this is not a speculative one,
> there is a guarantee that vm_start and vm_end match the faulting address,
> so this check is useless. In the context of the speculative page fault
> handler, this check may be wrong but anon_vma is still valid as explained
> above.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Laurent Dufour <ldufour@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>

I'm indifferent on this: it could be argued both sides that the new 
function and its variant for a simple VM_BUG_ON() isn't worth it and it 
would should rather be done in the callers of page_add_new_anon_rmap().  
It feels like it would be better left to the caller and add a comment to 
page_add_anon_rmap() itself in mm/rmap.c.