linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v4 2/3] mm: introduce put_user

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Date:   Tue, 9 Oct 2018 17:32:16 -0700
From:   John Hubbard <jhubbard@...dia.com>
To:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
CC:     <john.hubbard@...il.com>, Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        Christopher Lameter <cl@...ux.com>,
        Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@...pe.ca>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>, <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-rdma <linux-rdma@...r.kernel.org>,
        <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>, Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Jerome Glisse <jglisse@...hat.com>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>,
        Ralph Campbell <rcampbell@...dia.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 2/3] mm: introduce put_user_page*(), placeholder
 versions

On 10/9/18 4:20 PM, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Oct 2018 10:30:25 +0200 Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz> wrote:
> 
>>> Also, maintainability.  What happens if someone now uses put_page() by
>>> mistake?  Kernel fails in some mysterious fashion?  How can we prevent
>>> this from occurring as code evolves?  Is there a cheap way of detecting
>>> this bug at runtime?
>>
>> The same will happen as with any other reference counting bug - the special
>> user reference will leak. It will be pretty hard to debug I agree. I was
>> thinking about whether we could provide some type safety against such bugs
>> such as get_user_pages() not returning struct page pointers but rather some
>> other special type but it would result in a big amount of additional churn
>> as we'd have to propagate this different type e.g. through the IO path so
>> that IO completion routines could properly call put_user_pages(). So I'm
>> not sure it's really worth it.
> 
> I'm not really understanding.  Patch 3/3 changes just one infiniband
> driver to use put_user_page().  But the changelogs here imply (to me)
> that every user of get_user_pages() needs to be converted to
> s/put_page/put_user_page/.
> 
> Methinks a bit more explanation is needed in these changelogs?
> 

OK, yes, it does sound like the explanation is falling short. I'll work on something 
clearer. Did the proposed steps in the changelogs, such as:
  
[2] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180709080554.21931-1-jhubbard@nvidia.com
    Proposed steps for fixing get_user_pages() + DMA problems.

help at all, or is it just too many references, and I should write the words
directly in the changelog?

Anyway, patch 3/3 is a just a working example (which we do want to submit, though), and
many more conversions will follow. But they don't have to be done all upfront--they
can be done in follow up patchsets. 

The put_user_page*() routines are, at this point, not going to significantly change
behavior. 

I'm working on an RFC that will show what the long-term fix to get_user_pages and
put_user_pages will look like. But meanwhile it's good to get started on converting
all of the call sites.

thanks,
-- 
John Hubbard
NVIDIA