linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v11 4/6] mm: function to offer a page block on the free list

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]

Message-ID: <7b626551-6d1b-c8d5-4ef7-e357399e78dc@redhat.com>
Date:   Tue, 20 Jun 2017 18:49:33 +0200
From:   David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
To:     Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>,
        Wei Wang <wei.w.wang@...el.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        qemu-devel@...gnu.org, virtualization@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
        kvm@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org, mst@...hat.com,
        cornelia.huck@...ibm.com, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
        mgorman@...hsingularity.net, aarcange@...hat.com,
        amit.shah@...hat.com, pbonzini@...hat.com,
        liliang.opensource@...il.com
Cc:     Nitesh Narayan Lal <nilal@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v11 4/6] mm: function to offer a page block on the free
 list

On 20.06.2017 18:44, Rik van Riel wrote:
> On Mon, 2017-06-12 at 07:10 -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> 
>> The hypervisor is going to throw away the contents of these pages,
>> right?  As soon as the spinlock is released, someone can allocate a
>> page, and put good data in it.  What keeps the hypervisor from
>> throwing
>> away good data?
> 
> That looks like it may be the wrong API, then?
> 
> We already have hooks called arch_free_page and
> arch_alloc_page in the VM, which are called when
> pages are freed, and allocated, respectively.
> 
> Nitesh Lal (on the CC list) is working on a way
> to efficiently batch recently freed pages for
> free page hinting to the hypervisor.
> 
> If that is done efficiently enough (eg. with
> MADV_FREE on the hypervisor side for lazy freeing,
> and lazy later re-use of the pages), do we still
> need the harder to use batch interface from this
> patch?
> 
David's opinion incoming:

No, I think proper free page hinting would be the optimum solution, if
done right. This would avoid the batch interface and even turn
virtio-balloon in some sense useless.

-- 

Thanks,

David