[RFC PATCH] mm/nommu: Implement just enough vmap that compressed erofs can be mounted
From: Daniel Palmer
Date: Wed May 20 2026 - 15:41:35 EST
This implements a very poor imitation of vmap that works just
enough that compressed erofs filesystems can be mounted on nommu
machines. Right now compressed erofs filesystems trigger a BUG()
on nommu due to this missing.
This is awful, doesn't work like real vmap etc,.. but if you
really cared about stuff working you'd have an MMU I guess?
Signed-off-by: Daniel Palmer <daniel@xxxxxxxxx>
---
Did I miss anything massive that is going to come back and bite me?
Maybe it would have made more sense just to change the erofs
code so on !CONFIG_MMU it doesn't use vmap?
Why:
I'm attempting to get a kernel and userspace into ~3.5MB
of memory without an MMU. The kernel is just a bit over
2MB so I don't have much left.
I've constructed a userspace that is completely made
up of nolibc binaries and with a bit of tweaking and all
the debugging turned off it fits into a ~64KB erofs.
mm/nommu.c | 133 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
1 file changed, 127 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
diff --git a/mm/nommu.c b/mm/nommu.c
index ed3934bc2de4..a7dbb67b3b69 100644
--- a/mm/nommu.c
+++ b/mm/nommu.c
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
#include <linux/export.h>
#include <linux/mm.h>
#include <linux/sched/mm.h>
+#include <linux/hash.h>
#include <linux/mman.h>
#include <linux/swap.h>
#include <linux/file.h>
@@ -53,6 +54,18 @@ static struct kmem_cache *vm_region_jar;
struct rb_root nommu_region_tree = RB_ROOT;
DECLARE_RWSEM(nommu_region_sem);
+/* Tracking for our "poor man's" vmap */
+#define VMAP_HASH_BITS 6
+static struct hlist_head vmap_hash[1 << VMAP_HASH_BITS];
+static DEFINE_SPINLOCK(vmap_lock);
+
+struct nommu_vmap_area {
+ struct hlist_node node;
+ struct page **pages;
+ unsigned int count;
+ void *addr;
+};
+
const struct vm_operations_struct generic_file_vm_ops = {
};
@@ -305,29 +318,137 @@ void *vmalloc_32_user_noprof(unsigned long size)
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(vmalloc_32_user_noprof);
-void *vmap(struct page **pages, unsigned int count, unsigned long flags, pgprot_t prot)
+static bool vmap_needs_bounce(struct page **pages, unsigned int count)
{
- BUG();
+ unsigned long pfn = page_to_pfn(pages[0]);
+ unsigned int i;
+
+ for (i = 1; i < count; i++)
+ if (page_to_pfn(pages[i]) != pfn + i)
+ return true;
+
+ return false;
+}
+
+static inline unsigned int vmap_key(const void *addr)
+{
+ return hash_ptr(addr, VMAP_HASH_BITS);
+}
+
+static struct nommu_vmap_area *vmap_area_find(const void *addr)
+{
+ struct nommu_vmap_area *va;
+
+ hlist_for_each_entry(va, &vmap_hash[vmap_key(addr)], node)
+ if (va->addr == addr)
+ return va;
+
return NULL;
}
+
+static void *nommu_vmap_map(struct page **pages, unsigned int count)
+{
+ struct nommu_vmap_area *va __free(kfree) = NULL;
+ struct page **_pages __free(kfree) = NULL;
+ void *copy __free(kvfree) = NULL;
+ unsigned int i;
+
+ va = kmalloc_obj(struct nommu_vmap_area);
+ if (!va)
+ return NULL;
+
+ if (vmap_needs_bounce(pages, count)) {
+ copy = kvmalloc_array(count, PAGE_SIZE, GFP_KERNEL);
+ if (!copy)
+ return NULL;
+
+ _pages = kmemdup(pages, count * sizeof(*pages), GFP_KERNEL);
+ if (!_pages)
+ return NULL;
+
+ /*
+ * Copy the original contents of the pages into the new
+ * pages to pretend we virtually mapped them.
+ */
+ for (i = 0; i < count; i++) {
+ void *p = copy + (i * PAGE_SIZE);
+
+ memcpy(p, page_address(pages[i]), PAGE_SIZE);
+ }
+
+ va->addr = no_free_ptr(copy);
+ va->pages = no_free_ptr(_pages);
+ } else {
+ va->addr = page_address(pages[0]);
+ va->pages = NULL;
+ }
+
+ va->count = count;
+
+ scoped_guard(spinlock, &vmap_lock) {
+ hlist_add_head(&va->node,
+ &vmap_hash[vmap_key(va->addr)]);
+ }
+
+ return no_free_ptr(va)->addr;
+}
+
+static void nommu_vmap_unmap(const void *addr)
+{
+ struct nommu_vmap_area *va;
+ unsigned int i;
+
+ scoped_guard(spinlock, &vmap_lock) {
+ va = vmap_area_find(addr);
+ if (va)
+ hlist_del(&va->node);
+ }
+
+ if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!va))
+ return;
+
+ if (va->pages) {
+ /*
+ * Write back the new contents of the pages to
+ * the original ones, this is a waste of time if
+ * the pages weren't written to but we can't tell.
+ */
+ for (i = 0; i < va->count; i++) {
+ const void *src = addr + (i * PAGE_SIZE);
+ void *dst = page_address(va->pages[i]);
+
+ memcpy(dst, src, PAGE_SIZE);
+ }
+
+ kvfree(va->addr);
+ kfree(va->pages);
+ }
+
+ kfree(va);
+}
+
+void *vmap(struct page **pages, unsigned int count,
+ unsigned long flags, pgprot_t prot)
+{
+ return nommu_vmap_map(pages, count);
+}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(vmap);
void vunmap(const void *addr)
{
- BUG();
+ nommu_vmap_unmap(addr);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(vunmap);
void *vm_map_ram(struct page **pages, unsigned int count, int node)
{
- BUG();
- return NULL;
+ return nommu_vmap_map(pages, count);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(vm_map_ram);
void vm_unmap_ram(const void *mem, unsigned int count)
{
- BUG();
+ nommu_vmap_unmap(mem);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(vm_unmap_ram);
--
2.53.0