linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/1] mm/thp: fix MTE tag mismatch when replacing zero-filled subpages

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Message-ID: <45a7aa69-16df-4809-8ccd-c08c404d55cb@redhat.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2025 18:40:06 +0200
From: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
To: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>
Cc: Lance Yang <lance.yang@...ux.dev>, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
 lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com, usamaarif642@...il.com, yuzhao@...gle.com,
 ziy@...dia.com, baolin.wang@...ux.alibaba.com, baohua@...nel.org,
 voidice@...il.com, Liam.Howlett@...cle.com, cerasuolodomenico@...il.com,
 hannes@...xchg.org, kaleshsingh@...gle.com, npache@...hat.com,
 riel@...riel.com, roman.gushchin@...ux.dev, rppt@...nel.org,
 ryan.roberts@....com, dev.jain@....com, ryncsn@...il.com,
 shakeel.butt@...ux.dev, surenb@...gle.com, hughd@...gle.com,
 willy@...radead.org, matthew.brost@...el.com, joshua.hahnjy@...il.com,
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 Andrew.Yang@...iatek.com, casper.li@...iatek.com,
 chinwen.chang@...iatek.com, linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
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 linux-mm@...ck.org, ioworker0@...il.com, stable@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] mm/thp: fix MTE tag mismatch when replacing
 zero-filled subpages

On 23.09.25 18:14, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2025 at 12:52:06PM +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote:
>> I just realised that on arm64 with MTE we won't get any merging with the
>> zero page even if the user page isn't mapped with PROT_MTE. In
>> cpu_enable_mte() we zero the tags in the zero page and set
>> PG_mte_tagged. The reason is that we want to use the zero page with
>> PROT_MTE mappings (until tag setting causes CoW). Hmm, the arm64
>> memcmp_pages() messed up KSM merging with the zero page even before this
>> patch.
> [...]
>> diff --git a/arch/arm64/kernel/mte.c b/arch/arm64/kernel/mte.c
>> index e5e773844889..72a1dfc54659 100644
>> --- a/arch/arm64/kernel/mte.c
>> +++ b/arch/arm64/kernel/mte.c
>> @@ -73,6 +73,8 @@ int memcmp_pages(struct page *page1, struct page *page2)
>>   {
>>   	char *addr1, *addr2;
>>   	int ret;
>> +	bool page1_tagged = page_mte_tagged(page1) && !is_zero_page(page1);
>> +	bool page2_tagged = page_mte_tagged(page2) && !is_zero_page(page2);
>>   
>>   	addr1 = page_address(page1);
>>   	addr2 = page_address(page2);
>> @@ -83,11 +85,10 @@ int memcmp_pages(struct page *page1, struct page *page2)
>>   
>>   	/*
>>   	 * If the page content is identical but at least one of the pages is
>> -	 * tagged, return non-zero to avoid KSM merging. If only one of the
>> -	 * pages is tagged, __set_ptes() may zero or change the tags of the
>> -	 * other page via mte_sync_tags().
>> +	 * tagged, return non-zero to avoid KSM merging. Ignore the zero page
>> +	 * since it is always tagged with the tags cleared.
>>   	 */
>> -	if (page_mte_tagged(page1) || page_mte_tagged(page2))
>> +	if (page1_tagged || page2_tagged)
>>   		return addr1 != addr2;
>>   
>>   	return ret;
> 
> Unrelated to this discussion, I got an internal report that Linux hangs
> during boot with CONFIG_DEFERRED_STRUCT_PAGE_INIT because
> try_page_mte_tagging() locks up on uninitialised page flags.
> 
> Since we (always?) map the zero page as pte_special(), set_pte_at()

Yes. (if pte_special is implemented by the arch of course)

> won't check if the tags have to be initialised, so we can skip the
> PG_mte_tagged altogether. We actually had this code for some time until
> we introduced the pte_special() check in set_pte_at().
> 
> So alternative patch that also fixes the deferred struct page init (on
> the assumptions that the zero page is always mapped as pte_special():
> 

LGTM!

-- 
Cheers

David / dhildenb