Re: [PATCH RESEND] userfaultfd: snapshot VMA state across UFFDIO_COPY retry

From: David Hildenbrand (Arm)

Date: Wed May 20 2026 - 07:11:25 EST


On 5/19/26 07:25, Mike Rapoport wrote:
> From: "Mike Rapoport (Microsoft)" <rppt@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> mfill_copy_folio_retry() drops the VMA lock for copy_from_user() and
> reacquires it afterwards. The destination VMA can be replaced during that
> window.
>
> The existing check compares vma_uffd_ops() before and after the retry, but
> if a shmem VMA with MAP_SHARED is replaced with a shmem VMA with
> MAP_PRIVATE (or vice versa) the replacement goes undetected.
>
> The change from MAP_PRIVATE to MAP_SHARED will treat the folio allocated
> with shmem_alloc_folio() as anonymous and this will cause BUG() when
> mfill_atomic_install_pte() will try to folio_add_new_anon_rmap().
>
> The change from MAP_SHARED to MAP_PRIVATE allows injection of folios into
> the page cache of the original VMA.
>
> Introduce helpers for more comprehensive comparison of VMA state:
> - vma_snapshot_get() to save the relevant VMA state into a struct
> vma_snapshot (original uffd_ops, actual uffd_ops, relevant VMA flags,
> vm_file and pgoff) before dropping the lock
> - vma_snapshot_changed() to compare the saved state with the state of the
> VMA acquired after retaking the locks
> - vma_snapshot_put() to release vm_file pinning.
>
> Use DEFINE_FREE() cleanup to wrap vma_snapshot_put() to avoid complicating
> error handling paths in mfill_copy_folio_retry().
>
> Add vma_uffd_copy_ops() to avoid code duplication when original ops of
> shmem VMA with MAP_PRIVATE are replaced with anon_uffd_ops.
>
> Fixes: 292411fda25b ("mm/userfaultfd: detect VMA type change after copy retry in mfill_copy_folio_retry()")
> Fixes: 6ab703034f14 ("userfaultfd: mfill_atomic(): remove retry logic")
> Tested-by: Heechan Kang <gganji11@xxxxxxxxx>
> Suggested-by: Peter Xu <peterx@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Co-developed-by: David Carlier <devnexen@xxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: David Carlier <devnexen@xxxxxxxxx>
> Co-developed-by: Michael Bommarito <michael.bommarito@xxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Michael Bommarito <michael.bommarito@xxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Mike Rapoport (Microsoft) <rppt@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> mm/userfaultfd.c | 99 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
> 1 file changed, 79 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/userfaultfd.c b/mm/userfaultfd.c
> index 180bad42fc79..b70b84776a79 100644
> --- a/mm/userfaultfd.c
> +++ b/mm/userfaultfd.c
> @@ -14,6 +14,8 @@
> #include <linux/userfaultfd_k.h>
> #include <linux/mmu_notifier.h>
> #include <linux/hugetlb.h>
> +#include <linux/file.h>
> +#include <linux/cleanup.h>
> #include <asm/tlbflush.h>
> #include <asm/tlb.h>
> #include "internal.h"
> @@ -69,6 +71,24 @@ static const struct vm_uffd_ops *vma_uffd_ops(struct vm_area_struct *vma)
> return vma->vm_ops ? vma->vm_ops->uffd_ops : NULL;
> }
>
> +static const struct vm_uffd_ops *vma_uffd_copy_ops(struct vm_area_struct *vma)
> +{
> + const struct vm_uffd_ops *ops = vma_uffd_ops(vma);
> +
> + if (!ops)
> + return NULL;
> +
> + /*
> + * UFFDIO_COPY fills MAP_PRIVATE file-backed mappings as anonymous
> + * memory. This is an effective ops override, so retry validation must
> + * compare the override result, not just vma->vm_ops->uffd_ops.
> + */
> + if (!(vma->vm_flags & VM_SHARED))
> + return &anon_uffd_ops;
> +
> + return ops;
> +}
> +
> static __always_inline
> bool validate_dst_vma(struct vm_area_struct *dst_vma, unsigned long dst_end)
> {
> @@ -443,14 +463,70 @@ static int mfill_copy_folio_locked(struct folio *folio, unsigned long src_addr)
> return ret;
> }
>
> +#define VMA_SNAPSHOT_FLAGS append_vma_flags(__VMA_UFFD_FLAGS, VMA_SHARED_BIT)
> +
> +struct vma_snapshot {
> + const struct vm_uffd_ops *copy_ops;
> + const struct vm_uffd_ops *ops;
> + struct file *file;
> + vma_flags_t flags;
> + pgoff_t pgoff;
> +};

As this is all uffd specific, I wonder whether that should be "struct
uffd_vma_snapshot"/"vma_uffd_snapshot" etc.

>From a high level, this LGTM.

I wish we could identify relevant VMA changes more easily. Like, using a per-MM
sequence counter that we simply increment on any VMA changes.

--
Cheers,

David