Re: [PATCH v3 1/1] iommu/sva: Invalidate KVA range on kernel TLB flush

From: Dave Hansen
Date: Tue Aug 26 2025 - 10:31:27 EST


On 8/25/25 19:49, Baolu Lu wrote:
>> The three separate lists are needed because we're handling three
>> distinct types of page deallocation. Grouping the pages this way allows
>> the workqueue handler to free each type using the correct function.
>
> Please allow me to add more details.

Right, I know why it got added this way: it was the quickest way to hack
together a patch that fixes the IOMMU issue without refactoring anything.

I agree that you have three cases:
1. A full on 'struct ptdesc' that needs its destructor run
2. An order-0 'struct page'
3. A higher-order 'struct page'

Long-term, #2 and #3 probably need to get converted over to 'struct
ptdesc'. They don't look _that_ hard to convert to me. Willy, Vishal,
any other mm folks: do you agree?

Short-term, I'd just consolidate your issue down to a single list.

#1: For 'struct ptdesc', modify pte_free_kernel() to pass information in
to pagetable_dtor_free() to tell it to use the deferred page table
free list. Do this with a bit in the ptdesc or a new argument to
pagetable_dtor_free().
#2. Just append these to the deferred page table free list. Easy.
#3. The biggest hacky way to do this is to just treat the higher-order
non-compound page and put the pages on the deferred page table
free list one at a time. The other way to do it is to track down how
this thing got allocated in the first place and make sure it's got
__GFP_COMP metadata. If so, you can just use __free_pages() for
everything.

Yeah, it'll take a couple patches up front to refactor some things. But
that refactoring will make things more consistent instead of adding
adding complexity to deal with the inconsistency.