linux-kernel - [125/244] mm: sync vmalloc address space page tables in alloc_vm

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Date:	Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:01:29 -0700
From:	Greg KH <gregkh@...e.de>
To:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, stable@...nel.org
Cc:	stable-review@...nel.org, torvalds@...ux-foundation.org,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk,
	David Vrabel <david.vrabel@...rix.com>,
	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy.fitzhardinge@...rix.com>,
	Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>,
	Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@...rix.com>,
	Keir Fraser <keir.xen@...il.com>
Subject: [125/244] mm: sync vmalloc address space page tables in alloc_vm_area()

3.0-stable review patch.  If anyone has any objections, please let us know.

------------------

From: David Vrabel <david.vrabel@...rix.com>

commit 461ae488ecb125b140d7ea29ceeedbcce9327003 upstream.

Xen backend drivers (e.g., blkback and netback) would sometimes fail to
map grant pages into the vmalloc address space allocated with
alloc_vm_area().  The GNTTABOP_map_grant_ref would fail because Xen could
not find the page (in the L2 table) containing the PTEs it needed to
update.

(XEN) mm.c:3846:d0 Could not find L1 PTE for address fbb42000

netback and blkback were making the hypercall from a kernel thread where
task->active_mm != &init_mm and alloc_vm_area() was only updating the page
tables for init_mm.  The usual method of deferring the update to the page
tables of other processes (i.e., after taking a fault) doesn't work as a
fault cannot occur during the hypercall.

This would work on some systems depending on what else was using vmalloc.

Fix this by reverting ef691947d8a3 ("vmalloc: remove vmalloc_sync_all()
from alloc_vm_area()") and add a comment to explain why it's needed.

Signed-off-by: David Vrabel <david.vrabel@...rix.com>
Cc: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy.fitzhardinge@...rix.com>
Cc: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>
Cc: Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@...rix.com>
Cc: Keir Fraser <keir.xen@...il.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...e.de>

---
 mm/vmalloc.c |    8 ++++++++
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)

--- a/mm/vmalloc.c
+++ b/mm/vmalloc.c
@@ -2154,6 +2154,14 @@ struct vm_struct *alloc_vm_area(size_t s
 		return NULL;
 	}

+	/*
+	 * If the allocated address space is passed to a hypercall
+	 * before being used then we cannot rely on a page fault to
+	 * trigger an update of the page tables.  So sync all the page
+	 * tables here.
+	 */
+	vmalloc_sync_all();
+
 	return area;
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(alloc_vm_area);

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