Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] mm/rmap: fix and simplify reusing mergeable anon_vma as parent when fork

From: Konstantin Khlebnikov
Date: Wed Jan 08 2020 - 05:40:51 EST


On 08/01/2020 05.32, Wei Yang wrote:
On Tue, Jan 07, 2020 at 01:19:56PM +0300, Konstantin Khlebnikov wrote:
This fixes some misconceptions in commit 4e4a9eb92133 ("mm/rmap.c: reuse
mergeable anon_vma as parent when fork"). It merges anon-vma in unexpected
way but fortunately still produces valid anon-vma tree, so nothing crashes.

If in parent VMAs: SRC1 SRC2 .. SRCn share anon-vma ANON0, then after fork
before all patches in child process related VMAs: DST1 DST2 .. DSTn will
fork indepndent anon-vmas: ANON1 ANON2 .. ANONn (each is child of ANON0).
Before this patch only DST1 will fork new ANON1 and following DST2 .. DSTn
will share parent's ANON0 (i.e. anon-vma tree is valid but isn't optimal).
With this patch DST1 will create new ANON1 and DST2 .. DSTn will share it.

Root problem caused by initialization order in dup_mmap(): vma->vm_prev
is set after calling anon_vma_fork(). Thus in anon_vma_fork() it points to
previous VMA in parent mm.

Second problem is hidden behind first one: assumption "Parent has vm_prev,
which implies we have vm_prev" is wrong if first VMA in parent mm has set
flag VM_DONTCOPY. Luckily prev->anon_vma doesn't dereference NULL pointer
because in current code 'prev' actually is same as 'pprev'.

Third hidden problem is linking between VMA and anon-vmas whose pages it
could contain. Loop in anon_vma_clone() attaches only parent's anon-vmas,
shared anon-vma isn't attached. But every mapped page stays reachable in
rmap because we erroneously share anon-vma from parent's previous VMA.

This patch moves sharing logic out of anon_vma_clone() into more specific
anon_vma_fork() because this supposed to work only at fork() and simply
reuses anon_vma from previous VMA if it is forked from the same anon-vma.

Signed-off-by: Konstantin Khlebnikov <khlebnikov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reported-by: Li Xinhai <lixinhai.lxh@xxxxxxxxx>
Fixes: 4e4a9eb92133 ("mm/rmap.c: reuse mergeable anon_vma as parent when fork")
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/CALYGNiNzz+dxHX0g5-gNypUQc3B=8_Scp53-NTOh=zWsdUuHAw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/T/#t
---
include/linux/rmap.h | 3 ++-
kernel/fork.c | 2 +-
mm/rmap.c | 23 +++++++++--------------
3 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/rmap.h b/include/linux/rmap.h
index 988d176472df..560e4480dcd0 100644
--- a/include/linux/rmap.h
+++ b/include/linux/rmap.h
@@ -143,7 +143,8 @@ void anon_vma_init(void); /* create anon_vma_cachep */
int __anon_vma_prepare(struct vm_area_struct *);
void unlink_anon_vmas(struct vm_area_struct *);
int anon_vma_clone(struct vm_area_struct *, struct vm_area_struct *);
-int anon_vma_fork(struct vm_area_struct *, struct vm_area_struct *);
+int anon_vma_fork(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct vm_area_struct *pvma,
+ struct vm_area_struct *prev);

static inline int anon_vma_prepare(struct vm_area_struct *vma)
{
diff --git a/kernel/fork.c b/kernel/fork.c
index 2508a4f238a3..c33626993831 100644
--- a/kernel/fork.c
+++ b/kernel/fork.c
@@ -556,7 +556,7 @@ static __latent_entropy int dup_mmap(struct mm_struct *mm,
tmp->anon_vma = NULL;
if (anon_vma_prepare(tmp))
goto fail_nomem_anon_vma_fork;
- } else if (anon_vma_fork(tmp, mpnt))
+ } else if (anon_vma_fork(tmp, mpnt, prev))
goto fail_nomem_anon_vma_fork;
tmp->vm_flags &= ~(VM_LOCKED | VM_LOCKONFAULT);
tmp->vm_next = tmp->vm_prev = NULL;
diff --git a/mm/rmap.c b/mm/rmap.c
index b3e381919835..3c1e04389291 100644
--- a/mm/rmap.c
+++ b/mm/rmap.c
@@ -269,19 +269,6 @@ int anon_vma_clone(struct vm_area_struct *dst, struct vm_area_struct *src)
{
struct anon_vma_chain *avc, *pavc;
struct anon_vma *root = NULL;
- struct vm_area_struct *prev = dst->vm_prev, *pprev = src->vm_prev;
-
- /*
- * If parent share anon_vma with its vm_prev, keep this sharing in in
- * child.
- *
- * 1. Parent has vm_prev, which implies we have vm_prev.
- * 2. Parent and its vm_prev have the same anon_vma.
- */
- if (!dst->anon_vma && src->anon_vma &&
- pprev && pprev->anon_vma == src->anon_vma)
- dst->anon_vma = prev->anon_vma;
-

list_for_each_entry_reverse(pavc, &src->anon_vma_chain, same_vma) {
struct anon_vma *anon_vma;
@@ -332,7 +319,8 @@ int anon_vma_clone(struct vm_area_struct *dst, struct vm_area_struct *src)
* the corresponding VMA in the parent process is attached to.
* Returns 0 on success, non-zero on failure.
*/
-int anon_vma_fork(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct vm_area_struct *pvma)
+int anon_vma_fork(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct vm_area_struct *pvma,
+ struct vm_area_struct *prev)
{
struct anon_vma_chain *avc;
struct anon_vma *anon_vma;
@@ -342,6 +330,13 @@ int anon_vma_fork(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct vm_area_struct *pvma)
if (!pvma->anon_vma)
return 0;

+ /* Share anon_vma with previous VMA if it has the same parent. */
+ if (prev && prev->anon_vma &&
+ prev->anon_vma->parent == pvma->anon_vma) {
+ vma->anon_vma = prev->anon_vma;
+ return anon_vma_clone(vma, prev);
+ }
+

I am afraid this one change the intended behavior. Let's put a chart to
describe.

Commit 4e4a9eb92133 ("mm/rmap.c: reusemergeable anon_vma as parent when
fork") tries to improve the following situation.

Before the commit, the behavior is like this:

Parent process:

+-----+
| pav |<-----------------+----------------------+
+-----+ | |
| |
+-----------+ +-----------+
|pprev | |pvma |
+-----------+ +-----------+

Child Process


+-----+ +-----+
| av1 |<-----------------+ | av2 |<------------+
+-----+ | +-----+ |
| |
+-----------+ +-----------+
|prev | |vma |
+-----------+ +-----------+


Parent pprev and pvma share the same anon_vma due to
find_mergeable_anon_vma(). While the anon_vma_clone() would pick up different
anon_vma for child process's vma.

The purpose of my commit is to give child process the following shape.

+-----+
| av |<-----------------+----------------------+
+-----+ | |
| |
+-----------+ +-----------+
|prev | |vma |
+-----------+ +-----------+

After this, we reduce the extra "av2" for child process. But yes, because of
the two reasons you found, it didn't do the exact thing.

While if my understanding is correct, the anon_vma_clone() would pick up any
anon_vma in its process tree, except parent's. If this fails to get a reusable
one, anon_vma_fork() would allocate one, whose parent is pvma->anon_vma.

Let me summarise original behavior:

* if anon_vma_clone succeed, it find one anon_vma in the process tree, but
it could not be pvma->anon_vma
* if anon_vma_clone fail, it will allocate a new anon_vma and its parent is
pvma->anon_vam

Then take a look into your code here.

"prev->anon_vma->parent == pvma->anon_vma" means prev->anon_vma parent is
pvma's anon_vma. If my understanding is correct, this just match the second
case. For "prev", we didn't find a reusable anon_vma and allocate a new one.

But how about the first case? prev reuse an anon_vma in the process tree which
is not parent's?

If anon_vma_clone() pick old anon-vma for first vma in sharing chain (prev)
then second vma (vma) will fork new anon-vma (unless pick another old anon-vma),
then third vma will share it. And so on.

Fork works left to right - we don't known about next vma to predict sharing and
choose better options.

But reusing old vma doesn't allocates new one. It's better to not reuse them
second time because this makes tree less optimal (and actually not a tree anymore).
This is just a trick to prevent unlimited growth anon-vma chains in background:
while each anon-vma has at least one vma or two childs then their count is
limited with count of vmas which are visible and limited.


/* Drop inherited anon_vma, we'll reuse existing or allocate new. */
vma->anon_vma = NULL;


--
Wei Yang
Help you, Help me