linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2] page_alloc: Fix freeing non-compound pages

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Message-ID: <20200929072622.GN2645148@linux.ibm.com>
Date:   Tue, 29 Sep 2020 10:26:22 +0300
From:   Mike Rapoport <rppt@...ux.ibm.com>
To:     Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>
Cc:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Nick Piggin <npiggin@...il.com>,
        Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, hch@....de, rdunlap@...radead.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] page_alloc: Fix freeing non-compound pages

On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 04:40:26AM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 06:03:07PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > Well that's weird and scary looking.  `page' has non-zero refcount yet
> > we go and free random followon pages.  Methinks it merits an
> > explanatory comment?
> 
> Here's some kernel-doc.  Opinions?
> 
> /**
>  * __free_pages - Free pages allocated with alloc_pages().
>  * @page: The page pointer returned from alloc_pages().
>  * @order: The order of the allocation.
>  *
>  * This function differs from put_page() in that it can free multi-page

This sentence presumes existing description/prior knowledge about
put_page().

Maybe

  This function can free multi-page allocations that were not allocated
  with %__GFP_COMP, unlike put_page() that would free only the first page
  in such case. __free_pages() does not ...

>  * allocations that were not allocated with %__GFP_COMP.  This function
>  * does not check that the @order passed in matches that of the
>  * allocation, so it is possible to leak memory.  Freeing more memory than
>  * was allocated will probably be warned about by other debugging checks.
>  *
>  * It is only safe to use the page reference count to determine when
>  * to free an allocation if you use %__GFP_COMP (in which case, you may
>  * as well use put_page() to free the page).  Another thread may have a
>  * speculative reference to the first page, but it has no way of knowing
>  * about the rest of the allocation, so we have to free all but the
>  * first page here.
>  *
>  * Context: May be called in interrupt context but not NMI context.
>  */
> 

-- 
Sincerely yours,
Mike.