linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/4] mm: allow guard regions in file-backed and read-only mappings

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Message-ID: <de79890e-86b5-4f43-8a25-1e50c3b1daea@redhat.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2025 17:27:24 +0100
From: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
To: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
 Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@...gle.com>,
 "Liam R . Howlett" <Liam.Howlett@...cle.com>,
 Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>, Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
 "Paul E . McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>, Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
 linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
 Shuah Khan <shuah@...nel.org>, linux-kselftest@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-api@...r.kernel.org, John Hubbard <jhubbard@...dia.com>,
 Juan Yescas <jyescas@...gle.com>, Kalesh Singh <kaleshsingh@...gle.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] mm: allow guard regions in file-backed and read-only
 mappings

On 18.02.25 17:21, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 05:17:20PM +0100, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> On 18.02.25 17:12, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
>>> On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 05:01:16PM +0100, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>>>> On 13.02.25 19:17, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
>>>>> There is no reason to disallow guard regions in file-backed mappings -
>>>>> readahead and fault-around both function correctly in the presence of PTE
>>>>> markers, equally other operations relating to memory-mapped files function
>>>>> correctly.
>>>>>
>>>>> Additionally, read-only mappings if introducing guard-regions, only
>>>>> restrict the mapping further, which means there is no violation of any
>>>>> access rights by permitting this to be so.
>>>>>
>>>>> Removing this restriction allows for read-only mapped files (such as
>>>>> executable files) correctly which would otherwise not be permitted.
>>>>>
>>>>> Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>
>>>>> ---
>>>>>     mm/madvise.c | 8 +-------
>>>>>     1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 7 deletions(-)
>>>>>
>>>>> diff --git a/mm/madvise.c b/mm/madvise.c
>>>>> index 6ecead476a80..e01e93e179a8 100644
>>>>> --- a/mm/madvise.c
>>>>> +++ b/mm/madvise.c
>>>>> @@ -1051,13 +1051,7 @@ static bool is_valid_guard_vma(struct vm_area_struct *vma, bool allow_locked)
>>>>>     	if (!allow_locked)
>>>>>     		disallowed |= VM_LOCKED;
>>>>> -	if (!vma_is_anonymous(vma))
>>>>> -		return false;
>>>>> -
>>>>> -	if ((vma->vm_flags & (VM_MAYWRITE | disallowed)) != VM_MAYWRITE)
>>>>> -		return false;
>>>>> -
>>>>> -	return true;
>>>>> +	return !(vma->vm_flags & disallowed);
>>>>>     }
>>>>>     static bool is_guard_pte_marker(pte_t ptent)
>>>>
>>>> Acked-by: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I assume these markers cannot completely prevent us from allocating
>>>> pages/folios for these underlying file/pageache ranges of these markers in
>>>> case of shmem during page faults, right?
>>>
>>> If the markers are in place, then page faulting will result in a
>>> segfault. If we faulted in a shmem page then installed markers (which would
>>> zap the range), then the page cache will be populated, but obviously
>>> subject to standard reclaim.
>>
>> Well, yes, (a) if there is swap and (b), if the noswap option was not
>> specified for tmpfs.
>>
> 
> Right, yeah if you don't have it set up such that dropping a reference to the
> folio doesn't drop the page altogether.
> 
> I think this matches expectation though in that you'd get the same results from
> an MADV_DONTNEED followed by faulting the page again.

It might make sense to document that: installing a guard behaves just 
like MADV_DONTNEED; in case of a file, that means that the pagecache is 
left untouched.

> 
>> Okay, so installing a guard entry might require punshing a hole to get rid
>> of any already-existing memory. But readahead (below) might mess it up.
> 
> Only if you are so concerned about avoiding the page cache being populated there
> that you want to do this :)
> 
> Readahead I think will not readahead into a holepunched region as the hole
> punching extends to the fs layer _I believe_ I have not checked the code for
> this, but I believe it actually changes the underlying file too right to say
> 'this part of the file is empty'?

Well, we are talking about shmem here ... not your ordinary fs backed by 
an actual file :)

-- 
Cheers,

David / dhildenb