linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/1] mm/rmap: fix soft-dirty bit loss when remapping zero-filled mTHP subpage to shared zeropage

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Message-ID: <900d0314-8e9a-4779-a058-9bb3cc8840b8@linux.dev>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:29:33 +0800
From: Lance Yang <lance.yang@...ux.dev>
To: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
Cc: ziy@...dia.com, baolin.wang@...ux.alibaba.com, baohua@...nel.org,
 ryan.roberts@....com, dev.jain@....com, npache@...hat.com, riel@...riel.com,
 Liam.Howlett@...cle.com, vbabka@...e.cz, harry.yoo@...cle.com,
 jannh@...gle.com, matthew.brost@...el.com, joshua.hahnjy@...il.com,
 rakie.kim@...com, byungchul@...com, gourry@...rry.net,
 ying.huang@...ux.alibaba.com, apopple@...dia.com, usamaarif642@...il.com,
 yuzhao@...gle.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
 ioworker0@...il.com, stable@...r.kernel.org, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
 lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] mm/rmap: fix soft-dirty bit loss when remapping
 zero-filled mTHP subpage to shared zeropage



On 2025/9/29 15:25, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 28.09.25 06:48, Lance Yang wrote:
>> From: Lance Yang <lance.yang@...ux.dev>
>>
>> When splitting an mTHP and replacing a zero-filled subpage with the 
>> shared
>> zeropage, try_to_map_unused_to_zeropage() currently drops the soft-dirty
>> bit.
>>
>> For userspace tools like CRIU, which rely on the soft-dirty mechanism for
>> incremental snapshots, losing this bit means modified pages are missed,
>> leading to inconsistent memory state after restore.
>>
>> Preserve the soft-dirty bit from the old PTE when creating the zeropage
>> mapping to ensure modified pages are correctly tracked.
>>
>> Cc: <stable@...r.kernel.org>
>> Fixes: b1f202060afe ("mm: remap unused subpages to shared zeropage 
>> when splitting isolated thp")
>> Signed-off-by: Lance Yang <lance.yang@...ux.dev>
>> ---
>>   mm/migrate.c | 4 ++++
>>   1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
>>
>> diff --git a/mm/migrate.c b/mm/migrate.c
>> index ce83c2c3c287..bf364ba07a3f 100644
>> --- a/mm/migrate.c
>> +++ b/mm/migrate.c
>> @@ -322,6 +322,10 @@ static bool try_to_map_unused_to_zeropage(struct 
>> page_vma_mapped_walk *pvmw,
>>       newpte = pte_mkspecial(pfn_pte(my_zero_pfn(pvmw->address),
>>                       pvmw->vma->vm_page_prot));
>> +
>> +    if (pte_swp_soft_dirty(ptep_get(pvmw->pte)))
>> +        newpte = pte_mksoft_dirty(newpte);
>> +
>>       set_pte_at(pvmw->vma->vm_mm, pvmw->address, pvmw->pte, newpte);
>>       dec_mm_counter(pvmw->vma->vm_mm, mm_counter(folio));
> 
> It's interesting that there isn't a single occurrence of the stof-dirty 
> flag in khugepaged code. I guess it all works because we do the
> 
>      _pmd = maybe_pmd_mkwrite(pmd_mkdirty(_pmd), vma);
> 
> and the pmd_mkdirty() will imply marking it soft-dirty.
> 
> Now to the problem at hand: I don't think this is particularly 
> problematic in the common case: if the page is zero, it likely was never 
> written to (that's what the unerused shrinker is targeted at), so the 
> soft-dirty setting on the PMD is actually just an over-indication for 
> this page.

Cool. Thanks for the insight! Good to know that ;)

> 
> For example, when we just install the shared zeropage directly in 
> do_anonymous_page(), we obviously also don't set it dirty/soft-dirty.
> 
> Now, one could argue that if the content was changed from non-zero to 
> zero, it ould actually be soft-dirty.

Exactly. A false negative could be a problem for the userspace tools, IMO.

> 
> Long-story short: I don't think this matters much in practice, but it's 
> an easy fix.
> 
> As said by dev, please avoid double ptep_get() if possible.

Sure, will do. I'll refactor it in the next version.

> 
> Acked-by: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>

Thanks!

> 
> 
> @Lance, can you double-check that the uffd-wp bit is handled correctly? 
> I strongly assume we lose that as well here.

Certainly, I'll check the uffd-wp bit as well and get back to you soon.

Cheers,
Lance