Re: [PATCH] mm/memory: fix PMD/PUD checks in follow_pfnmap_start()

[David Hildenbrand (Arm)]

On 3/24/26 08:33, Vlastimil Babka (SUSE) wrote:
> On 3/23/26 21:20, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
>> follow_pfnmap_start() suffers from two problems:
>>
>> (1) We are not re-fetching the pmd/pud after taking the PTL
>>
>> Therefore, we are not properly stabilizing what the lock lock actually
>> protects. If there is concurrent zapping, we would indicate to the
>> caller that we found an entry, however, that entry might already have
>> been invalidated, or contain a different PFN after taking the lock.
>>
>> Properly use pmdp_get() / pudp_get() after taking the lock.
>>
>> (2) pmd_leaf() / pud_leaf() are not well defined on non-present entries
>>
>> pmd_leaf()/pud_leaf() could wrongly trigger on non-present entries.
>>
>> There is no real guarantee that pmd_leaf()/pud_leaf() returns something
>> reasonable on non-present entries. Most architectures indeed either
>> perform a present check or make it work by smart use of flags.
>>
>> However, for example loongarch checks the _PAGE_HUGE flag in pmd_leaf(),
>> and always sets the _PAGE_HUGE flag in __swp_entry_to_pmd(). Whereby
>> pmd_trans_huge() explicitly checks pmd_present(), pmd_leaf() does not
>> do that.
>>
>> Let's check pmd_present()/pud_present() before assuming "the is a
>> present PMD leaf" when spotting pmd_leaf()/pud_leaf(), like other page
>> table handling code that traverses user page tables does.
>>
>> Given that non-present PMD entries are likely rare in VM_IO|VM_PFNMAP,
>> (1) is likely more relevant than (2). It is questionable how often (1)
>> would actually trigger, but let's CC stable to be sure.
>>
>> This was found by code inspection.
>>
>> Fixes: 6da8e9634bb7 ("mm: new follow_pfnmap API")
>> Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka (SUSE) <vbabka@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Should we also convert pgd_none() and p4d_none() checks to X_present() checks?

For these, we don't really support non-present entries yet (excluding
hugetlb, hmmm)..

I have some more cleanups laying around here, I'll throw that in as
well, thanks!

-- 
Cheers,

David