linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH V2] mm: Allow userland to request that the kernel clear memory on release

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Date:   Mon, 29 Apr 2019 17:44:58 -0400
From:   Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
To:     Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...gle.com>
Cc:     linux-mm@...ck.org,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH V2] mm: Allow userland to request that the kernel clear
 memory on release

On Fri 26-04-19 11:08:44, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 10:25 PM Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu 25-04-19 13:39:01, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> > > Yes, given MADV_DONTDUMP doesn't imply mlock I thought it'd be more
> > > consistent to keep those independent.
> >
> > Do we want to fail madvise call on VMAs that are not mlocked then? What
> > if the munlock happens later after the madvise is called?
> 
> I'm not sure if it's strictly necessary. We already have various
> combinations of features that only make sense when used together and
> which can be undermined by later actions. I can see the appeal of
> designing this in a way that makes it harder to misuse, but is that
> worth additional implementation complexity?

If the complexity is not worth the usual usecases then this should be
really documented and noted that without an mlock you are not getting
the full semantic and you can leave memory behind on the swap partition.

I cannot judge how much that matter but it certainly looks half feature
to me but if nobody is going to use the madvise without mlock then it
looks certainly much easier to implement.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs