linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH resend 3/6] mm: Add refcount for preserving mm

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Date:   Sat, 17 Oct 2020 02:30:31 +0200
From:   Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>
To:     Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@...pe.ca>
Cc:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        Eric Biederman <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
        Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>,
        kernel list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH resend 3/6] mm: Add refcount for preserving mm_struct
 without pgd

On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 1:21 AM Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@...pe.ca> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 01:09:12AM +0200, Jann Horn wrote:
> > Currently, mm_struct has two refcounts:
> >
> >  - mm_users: preserves everything - the mm_struct, the page tables, the
> >    memory mappings, and so on
> >  - mm_count: preserves the mm_struct and pgd
> >
> > However, there are three types of users of mm_struct:
> >
> > 1. users that want page tables, memory mappings and so on
> > 2. users that want to preserve the pgd (for lazy TLB)
> > 3. users that just want to keep the mm_struct itself around (e.g. for
> >    mmget_not_zero() or __ptrace_may_access())
> >
> > Dropping mm_count references can be messy because dropping mm_count to
> > zero deletes the pgd, which takes the pgd_lock on x86, meaning it doesn't
> > work from RCU callbacks (which run in IRQ context). In those cases,
> > mmdrop_async() must be used to punt the invocation of __mmdrop() to
> > workqueue context.
> >
> > That's fine when mmdrop_async() is a rare case, but the preceding patch
> > "ptrace: Keep mm around after exit_mm() for __ptrace_may_access()" makes it
> > the common case; we should probably avoid punting freeing to workqueue
> > context all the time if we can avoid it?
> >
> > To resolve this, add a third refcount that just protects the mm_struct and
> > the user_ns it points to, and which can be dropped with synchronous freeing
> > from (almost) any context.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>
> > ---
> >  arch/x86/kernel/tboot.c    |  2 ++
> >  drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c |  2 ++
> >  include/linux/mm_types.h   | 13 +++++++++++--
> >  include/linux/sched/mm.h   | 13 +++++++++++++
> >  kernel/fork.c              | 14 ++++++++++----
> >  mm/init-mm.c               |  2 ++
> >  6 files changed, 40 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
>
> I think mmu notifiers and the stuff in drivers/infiniband/core/ can be
> converted to this as well..
>
> Actually I kind of wonder if you should go the reverse and find the
> few callers that care about the pgd and give them a new api with a
> better name (mmget_pgd?).

Yeah, that might make more sense... as long as I'm really sure about
all the places I haven't changed. ^^

I'll try to change it as you suggested for v2.