linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm: khugepaged: fix potential page state corruption

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Date:   Wed, 25 Mar 2020 14:26:23 +0300
From:   "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill@...temov.name>
To:     Yang Shi <yang.shi@...ux.alibaba.com>
Cc:     kirill.shutemov@...ux.intel.com, hughd@...gle.com,
        aarcange@...hat.com, akpm@...ux-foundation.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm: khugepaged: fix potential page state corruption

On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 10:17:13AM -0700, Yang Shi wrote:
> 
> 
> On 3/19/20 3:49 AM, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 10:39:21PM -0700, Yang Shi wrote:
> > > 
> > > On 3/18/20 5:55 PM, Yang Shi wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > On 3/18/20 5:12 PM, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 07:19:42AM +0800, Yang Shi wrote:
> > > > > > When khugepaged collapses anonymous pages, the base pages would
> > > > > > be freed
> > > > > > via pagevec or free_page_and_swap_cache().  But, the anonymous page may
> > > > > > be added back to LRU, then it might result in the below race:
> > > > > > 
> > > > > >      CPU A                CPU B
> > > > > > khugepaged:
> > > > > >     unlock page
> > > > > >     putback_lru_page
> > > > > >       add to lru
> > > > > >                  page reclaim:
> > > > > >                    isolate this page
> > > > > >                    try_to_unmap
> > > > > >     page_remove_rmap <-- corrupt _mapcount
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > It looks nothing would prevent the pages from isolating by reclaimer.
> > > > > Hm. Why should it?
> > > > > 
> > > > > try_to_unmap() doesn't exclude parallel page unmapping. _mapcount is
> > > > > protected by ptl. And this particular _mapcount pin is reachable for
> > > > > reclaim as it's not part of usual page table tree. Basically
> > > > > try_to_unmap() will never succeeds until we give up the _mapcount on
> > > > > khugepaged side.
> > > > I don't quite get. What does "not part of usual page table tree" means?
> > > > 
> > > > How's about try_to_unmap() acquires ptl before khugepaged?
> > The page table we are dealing with was detached from the process' page
> > table tree: see pmdp_collapse_flush(). try_to_unmap() will not see the
> > pte.
> 
> A follow-up question here. pmdp_collapse_flush() clears pmd entry and does
> TLB shootdown on x86. I'm supposed the main purpose is to serialize fast gup
> since it doesn't acquire any lock (mmap_sem, ptl ,etc), but disable
> interrupt so the TLB shootdown IPI would get blocked. This could guarantee
> synchronization on x86, but it looks not all architectures do TLB shootdown
> or implement it via IPI, so how they could serialize with fast gup?

The main purpose of pmdp_collapse_flush() is to block access to pages
under collapse, including access via GUP (and its variants).

It's up to architecture to implement it correctly, including TLB flush vs.
GUP_fast serialization. Genetic way works fine for most architectures.
Notable exceptions are Power and S390.

> In addition it looks acquiring pmd lock is not necessary. Before both write
> mmap_sem and write anon_vma lock are acquired which could serialize page
> fault and rmap walk, so it looks fast gup is the only one which could run
> concurrently, but fast gup doesn't acquire ptl at all. It seems the
> pmd_lock/unlock could be removed.

This is likely true. And we have a comment there. But taking uncontended
lock is check, so why not.

-- 
 Kirill A. Shutemov