linux-kernel - [PATCH v2 3/4] mm/vma: enforce VMA fork limit on unfaulted,faulted mremap merge too

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Message-ID: <6e2b9b3024ae1220961c8b81d74296d4720eaf2b.1767638272.git.lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com>
Date: Mon,  5 Jan 2026 20:11:49 +0000
From: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc: "Liam R . Howlett" <Liam.Howlett@...cle.com>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>, Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
        Pedro Falcato <pfalcato@...e.de>, Yeoreum Yun <yeoreum.yun@....com>,
        linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        David Hildenbrand <david@...nel.org>,
        Jeongjun Park <aha310510@...il.com>, Rik van Riel <riel@...riel.com>,
        Harry Yoo <harry.yoo@...cle.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2 3/4] mm/vma: enforce VMA fork limit on unfaulted,faulted mremap merge too

The is_mergeable_anon_vma() function uses vmg->middle as the source
VMA. However when merging a new VMA, this field is NULL.

In all cases except mremap(), the new VMA will either be newly established
and thus lack an anon_vma, or will be an expansion of an existing VMA thus
we do not care about whether VMA is CoW'd or not.

In the case of an mremap(), we can end up in a situation where we can
accidentally allow an unfaulted/faulted merge with a VMA that has been
forked, violating the general rule that we do not permit this for reasons
of anon_vma lock scalability.

Now we have the ability to be aware of the fact we are copying a VMA and
also know which VMA that is, we can explicitly check for this, so do so.

This is pertinent since commit 879bca0a2c4f ("mm/vma: fix incorrectly
disallowed anonymous VMA merges"), as this patch permits unfaulted/faulted
merges that were previously disallowed running afoul of this issue.

While we are here, vma_had_uncowed_parents() is a confusing name, so make
it simple and rename it to vma_is_fork_child().

Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>
Fixes: 879bca0a2c4f ("mm/vma: fix incorrectly disallowed anonymous VMA merges")
Cc: stable@...nel.org
---
 mm/vma.c | 27 +++++++++++++++------------
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/vma.c b/mm/vma.c
index 660f4732f8a5..fb45a6be7417 100644
--- a/mm/vma.c
+++ b/mm/vma.c
@@ -67,18 +67,13 @@ struct mmap_state {
 		.state = VMA_MERGE_START,				\
 	}
 
-/*
- * If, at any point, the VMA had unCoW'd mappings from parents, it will maintain
- * more than one anon_vma_chain connecting it to more than one anon_vma. A merge
- * would mean a wider range of folios sharing the root anon_vma lock, and thus
- * potential lock contention, we do not wish to encourage merging such that this
- * scales to a problem.
- */
-static bool vma_had_uncowed_parents(struct vm_area_struct *vma)
+/* Was this VMA ever forked from a parent, i.e. maybe contains CoW mappings? */
+static bool vma_is_fork_child(struct vm_area_struct *vma)
 {
 	/*
 	 * The list_is_singular() test is to avoid merging VMA cloned from
-	 * parents. This can improve scalability caused by anon_vma lock.
+	 * parents. This can improve scalability caused by the anon_vma root
+	 * lock.
 	 */
 	return vma && vma->anon_vma && !list_is_singular(&vma->anon_vma_chain);
 }
@@ -115,11 +110,19 @@ static bool is_mergeable_anon_vma(struct vma_merge_struct *vmg, bool merge_next)
 	VM_WARN_ON(src && src_anon != src->anon_vma);
 
 	/* Case 1 - we will dup_anon_vma() from src into tgt. */
-	if (!tgt_anon && src_anon)
-		return !vma_had_uncowed_parents(src);
+	if (!tgt_anon && src_anon) {
+		struct vm_area_struct *copied_from = vmg->copied_from;
+
+		if (vma_is_fork_child(src))
+			return false;
+		if (vma_is_fork_child(copied_from))
+			return false;
+
+		return true;
+	}
 	/* Case 2 - we will simply use tgt's anon_vma. */
 	if (tgt_anon && !src_anon)
-		return !vma_had_uncowed_parents(tgt);
+		return !vma_is_fork_child(tgt);
 	/* Case 3 - the anon_vma's are already shared. */
 	return src_anon == tgt_anon;
 }
-- 
2.52.0