linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 10/23] userfaultfd: add new syscall to provide memory externalization

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Date:	Tue, 23 Jun 2015 23:41:41 +0200
From:	Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>
To:	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
	qemu-devel@...gnu.org, kvm@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-api@...r.kernel.org, Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@...allels.com>,
	Sanidhya Kashyap <sanidhya.gatech@...il.com>,
	zhang.zhanghailiang@...wei.com,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill@...temov.name>,
	Andres Lagar-Cavilla <andreslc@...gle.com>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
	Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>, Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>,
	Peter Feiner <pfeiner@...gle.com>,
	"Dr. David Alan Gilbert" <dgilbert@...hat.com>,
	Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
	"Huangpeng (Peter)" <peter.huangpeng@...wei.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 10/23] userfaultfd: add new syscall to provide memory
 externalization

Hi Dave,

On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 12:00:19PM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> Down in userfaultfd_wake_function(), it looks like you intended for a
> len=0 to mean "wake all".  But the validate_range() that we do from
> userspace has a !len check in it, which keeps us from passing a len=0 in
> from userspace.
> Was that "wake all" for some internal use, or is the check too strict?

It's for internal use or userfaultfd_release that has to wake them all
(after setting ctx->released) if the uffd is closed. It avoids to
enlarge the structure by depending on the invariant that userland
cannot pass len=0.

If we'd accept len=0 from userland as valid, I'd be safer if it does
nothing like in madvise, I doubt we want to expose this non standard
kernel internal behavior to userland.

> I was trying to use the wake ioctl after an madvise() (as opposed to
> filling things in using a userfd copy).

madvise will return 0 if len=0, mremap would return -EINVAL if new_len
is zero, mmap also returns -EINVAL if len is 0, not all MM syscalls
are as permissive as madvise. Can't you pass the same len you pass to
madvise to UFFDIO_WAKE (or just skip the call if the madvise len is
zero)?

Thanks,
Andrea
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