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: <1f66374a-a901-49e7-95c8-96b1e5a5f22d@linux.dev>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2025 19:29:45 +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 18:29, Lance Yang wrote:
> 
> 
> 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.

Yes, the uffd-wp bit was indeed being dropped, but ...

The shared zeropage is read-only, which triggers a fault. IIUC,
The kernel then falls back to checking the VM_UFFD_WP flag on
the VMA and correctly generates a uffd-wp event, masking the
fact that the uffd-wp bit on the PTE was lost.

IMHO, explicitly preserving the uffd-wp bit on the PTE is still
necessary, since we're not sure if losing that bit is safe in
all cases :)

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