linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/6] RFC v2: mm: gup/dma tracking

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Date:   Mon, 4 Feb 2019 16:08:02 +0000
From:   Christopher Lameter <cl@...ux.com>
To:     john.hubbard@...il.com
cc:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Christian Benvenuti <benve@...co.com>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>,
        Dennis Dalessandro <dennis.dalessandro@...el.com>,
        Doug Ledford <dledford@...hat.com>, Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>,
        Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@...pe.ca>,
        Jerome Glisse <jglisse@...hat.com>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        Mike Rapoport <rppt@...ux.ibm.com>,
        Mike Marciniszyn <mike.marciniszyn@...el.com>,
        Ralph Campbell <rcampbell@...dia.com>,
        Tom Talpey <tom@...pey.com>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, John Hubbard <jhubbard@...dia.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/6] RFC v2: mm: gup/dma tracking

On Sun, 3 Feb 2019, john.hubbard@...il.com wrote:

> Some kernel components (file systems, device drivers) need to access
> memory that is specified via process virtual address. For a long time, the
> API to achieve that was get_user_pages ("GUP") and its variations. However,
> GUP has critical limitations that have been overlooked; in particular, GUP
> does not interact correctly with filesystems in all situations. That means
> that file-backed memory + GUP is a recipe for potential problems, some of
> which have already occurred in the field.

It may be worth noting a couple of times in this text that this was
designed for anonymous memory and that such use is/was ok. We are talking
about a use case here using mmapped access with a regular filesystem that
was not initially intended. The mmapping of from the hugepages filesystem
is special in that it is not a device that is actually writing things
back.

Any use with a filesystem that actually writes data back to a medium
is something that is broken.