linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH V4 3/4] arm64/mm: Hold memory hotplug lock while walking for kernel page table dump

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Message-ID: <4a9e0e2a-2acd-11b5-5181-41801cd11d98@arm.com>
Date:   Fri, 24 May 2019 10:22:18 +0530
From:   Anshuman Khandual <anshuman.khandual@....com>
To:     Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
        akpm@...ux-foundation.org, catalin.marinas@....com,
        will.deacon@....com, mark.rutland@....com, ira.weiny@...el.com,
        david@...hat.com, cai@....pw, logang@...tatee.com,
        james.morse@....com, cpandya@...eaurora.org, arunks@...eaurora.org,
        dan.j.williams@...el.com, mgorman@...hsingularity.net,
        osalvador@...e.de, ard.biesheuvel@....com
Subject: Re: [PATCH V4 3/4] arm64/mm: Hold memory hotplug lock while walking
 for kernel page table dump



On 05/21/2019 03:44 PM, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Mon 20-05-19 10:48:35, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
>> The arm64 page table dump code can race with concurrent modification of the
>> kernel page tables. When a leaf entries are modified concurrently, the dump
>> code may log stale or inconsistent information for a VA range, but this is
>> otherwise not harmful.
>>
>> When intermediate levels of table are freed, the dump code will continue to
>> use memory which has been freed and potentially reallocated for another
>> purpose. In such cases, the dump code may dereference bogus addresses,
>> leading to a number of potential problems.
>>
>> Intermediate levels of table may by freed during memory hot-remove,
>> which will be enabled by a subsequent patch. To avoid racing with
>> this, take the memory hotplug lock when walking the kernel page table.
> 
> I've had a comment on this patch in the previous version which didn't
> get answered completely AFAICS. If you really insist then please make
> sure to describe why does this really matter because this will make
> any further changes to the hotplug locking harder and I would to see
> that it is worth the additional trouble.

Hello Michal,

I was under the impression (seems wrongful now) that the previous discussion
was complete. Nonetheless we can still discuss it further. Mark has responded
on the previous V3 thread [1] and because this particular patch does not have
any changes from last time, we can continue discussing this in that thread.

[1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/5/22/613   

- Anshuman