linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v4 3/5] mm: madvise: implement lightweight guard page mechanism

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Message-ID: <a9d8d380-a531-4f2f-a2b1-b36943ef7264@suse.cz>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2024 11:32:27 +0100
From: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
To: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>,
 Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@...gle.com>,
 "Liam R . Howlett" <Liam.Howlett@...cle.com>,
 Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>, "Paul E . McKenney"
 <paulmck@...nel.org>, Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
 David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Muchun Song <muchun.song@...ux.dev>,
 Richard Henderson <richard.henderson@...aro.org>,
 Matt Turner <mattst88@...il.com>,
 Thomas Bogendoerfer <tsbogend@...ha.franken.de>,
 "James E . J . Bottomley" <James.Bottomley@...senPartnership.com>,
 Helge Deller <deller@....de>, Chris Zankel <chris@...kel.net>,
 Max Filippov <jcmvbkbc@...il.com>, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...nel.org>,
 linux-alpha@...r.kernel.org, linux-mips@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-parisc@...r.kernel.org, linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
 Shuah Khan <shuah@...nel.org>, Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>,
 linux-kselftest@...r.kernel.org, Sidhartha Kumar
 <sidhartha.kumar@...cle.com>, Jeff Xu <jeffxu@...omium.org>,
 Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>, linux-api@...r.kernel.org,
 John Hubbard <jhubbard@...dia.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 3/5] mm: madvise: implement lightweight guard page
 mechanism

On 10/28/24 15:13, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> Implement a new lightweight guard page feature, that is regions of userland
> virtual memory that, when accessed, cause a fatal signal to arise.
> 
> Currently users must establish PROT_NONE ranges to achieve this.
> 
> However this is very costly memory-wise - we need a VMA for each and every
> one of these regions AND they become unmergeable with surrounding VMAs.
> 
> In addition repeated mmap() calls require repeated kernel context switches
> and contention of the mmap lock to install these ranges, potentially also
> having to unmap memory if installed over existing ranges.
> 
> The lightweight guard approach eliminates the VMA cost altogether - rather
> than establishing a PROT_NONE VMA, it operates at the level of page table
> entries - establishing PTE markers such that accesses to them cause a fault
> followed by a SIGSGEV signal being raised.
> 
> This is achieved through the PTE marker mechanism, which we have already
> extended to provide PTE_MARKER_GUARD, which we installed via the generic
> page walking logic which we have extended for this purpose.
> 
> These guard ranges are established with MADV_GUARD_INSTALL. If the range in
> which they are installed contain any existing mappings, they will be
> zapped, i.e. free the range and unmap memory (thus mimicking the behaviour
> of MADV_DONTNEED in this respect).
> 
> Any existing guard entries will be left untouched. There is therefore no
> nesting of guarded pages.
> 
> Guarded ranges are NOT cleared by MADV_DONTNEED nor MADV_FREE (in both
> instances the memory range may be reused at which point a user would expect
> guards to still be in place), but they are cleared via MADV_GUARD_REMOVE,
> process teardown or unmapping of memory ranges.
> 
> The guard property can be removed from ranges via MADV_GUARD_REMOVE. The
> ranges over which this is applied, should they contain non-guard entries,
> will be untouched, with only guard entries being cleared.
> 
> We permit this operation on anonymous memory only, and only VMAs which are
> non-special, non-huge and not mlock()'d (if we permitted this we'd have to
> drop locked pages which would be rather counterintuitive).
> 
> Racing page faults can cause repeated attempts to install guard pages that
> are interrupted, result in a zap, and this process can end up being
> repeated. If this happens more than would be expected in normal operation,
> we rescind locks and retry the whole thing, which avoids lock contention in
> this scenario.
> 
> Suggested-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
> Suggested-by: Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>
> Suggested-by: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
> Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>

Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>