linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm/shmem: fix uninitialized folio in shmem

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Message-ID: <aVvDcEB583Yuolm_@bfoster>
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2026 08:58:08 -0500
From: Brian Foster <bfoster@...hat.com>
To: Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@...ux.alibaba.com>
Cc: Barry Song <21cnbao@...il.com>, Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>,
	syzbot+178fff6149127421c2cc@...kaller.appspotmail.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm/shmem: fix uninitialized folio in shmem_symlink

On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 06:08:08PM +0800, Baolin Wang wrote:
> 
> 
> On 2025/12/25 12:04, Barry Song wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 6:01 AM Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org> wrote:
> > > 
> > > On Wed, Dec 24, 2025 at 10:40:27PM +1300, Barry Song wrote:
> > > > From: Barry Song <baohua@...nel.org>
> > > > 
> > > > Uninitialized folio allocated in shmem_symlink() may be accessed
> > > > during swap-out, causing KMSAN BUG:
> > > 
> > > This would be an unfortunate way to fix it.  The vast majority of
> > > symlinks are short, and we'll never access past the \0 in normal
> > > operation, so we'll be dirtying a lot of cachelines essentially to (1)
> > > shut up an automated tool and (2) optimise a corner case.
> > > 
> > > How about this instead which delays zeroing to swapout?
> > 
> > Matthew, thank you very much for your review, even during Christmas.
> > I would like to wish you a happy holiday!
> > 
> > I am not quite sure, as shm symlinks do not seem very common. Since
> > allocating a folio requires a symname longer than 128 bytes (where
> > 128 == SHORT_SYMLINK_LEN), such cases appear even rarer.
> > 
> > BTW, do we need to migrate the owner_2 flag in folio_migrate_flags()?
> > If so, I am not quite sure it is worth changing the hotpath to
> > accommodate this.
> 
> +1. At least for me, using the 'PG_owner_2' flag alone to mark this uncommon
> case doesn't seem quite worthwhile.
> 

Also JFYI the post-eof swapout zeroing work (still pending) looks to me
like it would cover the swapout time case [1]. That's just if you wanted
to go that route here; creation time zeroing for the large symlink case
seems reasonable enough to me as well.

Brian

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20251121152246.1023918-3-bfoster@redhat.com/

> > > diff --git a/mm/shmem.c b/mm/shmem.c
> > > index ec6c01378e9d..f3b3be1b50fe 100644
> > > --- a/mm/shmem.c
> > > +++ b/mm/shmem.c
> > > @@ -1636,6 +1636,13 @@ int shmem_writeout(struct folio *folio, struct swap_iocb **plug,
> > >                  folio_mark_uptodate(folio);
> > >          }
> > > 
> > > +       /* Zero out symlink tails to help with compression */
> > > +       if (folio_test_owner_2(folio)) {
> > > +               struct inode *inode = folio->mapping->host;
> > > +               folio_zero_segment(folio, inode->i_size, folio_size(folio));
> > > +               folio_clear_owner_2(folio);
> > > +       }
> > > +
> > >          if (!folio_alloc_swap(folio)) {
> > >                  bool first_swapped = shmem_recalc_inode(inode, 0, nr_pages);
> > >                  int error;
> > > @@ -4133,6 +4140,7 @@ static int shmem_symlink(struct mnt_idmap *idmap, struct inode *dir,
> > >                  memcpy(folio_address(folio), symname, len);
> > >                  folio_mark_uptodate(folio);
> > >                  folio_mark_dirty(folio);
> > > +               folio_set_owner_2(folio);
> > >                  folio_unlock(folio);
> > >                  folio_put(folio);
> > >          }
> > 
> > Thanks
> > Barry
> 
>