Re: [PATCH] userfaultfd: fix UFFDIO_MOVE livelock on large folio with extra references
From: David Hildenbrand (Arm)
Date: Tue Oct 13 2026 - 14:11:35 EST
On 10/12/26 22:15, Cen Zhang (Microsoft) wrote:
> To move one page out of a large folio, move_pages_ptes() first has to
> split the folio. __folio_split() refuses if the folio has any
> reference beyond its page table mappings and the caller's own, and it
> reports the refusal as -EAGAIN. move_pages() treats returned -EAGAIN
> as a transient race and keeps retrying the same address, holding the VMA
> read locks the whole time. This is incorrect since in some cases
> userspace can hold such a reference indefinitely, such as by
> registering the page as an io_uring buffer.
>
> An unprivileged user can trigger this with three threads: first holds
> such a reference on a page of a THP, second calls UFFDIO_MOVE on another
> page of the same THP and spins in the kernel forever holding the VMA
> read locks, and third calls fork() or mprotect(), which takes mmap_lock
> for writing and then waits forever for those read locks. From then on
> every mmap_lock user of that mm hangs, including other processes
> inspecting it through /proc/<pid>/, until the process is SIGKILLed.
> The hung task detector reports the blocked tasks (third one), and with
> kernel.hung_task_panic=1 the machine panics:
>
> INFO: task wedge:95 blocked for more than 122 seconds.
> task:wedge state:D stack:12528 pid:95 tgid:95 ppid:94
> Call Trace:
> __schedule+0x596/0x1110
> schedule+0x36/0xf0
> __vma_start_exclude_readers+0x100/0x170
> __vma_start_write+0x51/0xd0
> __split_vma+0x208/0x3d0
> vma_modify+0x6a8/0x840
> vma_modify_flags+0xce/0x110
> mprotect_fixup+0xbe/0x480
> do_mprotect_pkey+0x2d9/0x580
> __x64_sys_mprotect+0x1a/0x30
>
> Fix by returning -EBUSY instead of -EAGAIN in move_pages_ptes(), the
> caller of split_folio(), when the split fails. Thus, move_pages()
> does not retry -EBUSY and the ioctl drops its locks and returns to
> userspace instead of spinning.
>
> Fixes: adef440691ba ("userfaultfd: UFFDIO_MOVE uABI")
> Reported-by: AutonomousCodeSecurity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Assisted-by: LLM
> Signed-off-by: Cen Zhang (Microsoft) <cenzhang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> mm/userfaultfd.c | 6 +++++-
> 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/userfaultfd.c b/mm/userfaultfd.c
> index 74f04c323c50..500962be1162 100644
> --- a/mm/userfaultfd.c
> +++ b/mm/userfaultfd.c
> @@ -1663,8 +1663,12 @@ static long move_pages_ptes(struct mm_struct *mm, pmd_t *dst_pmd, pmd_t *src_pmd
> pte_unmap(dst_pte);
> src_pte = dst_pte = NULL;
> ret = split_folio(src_folio);
> - if (ret)
> + if (ret) {
> + /* do not retry, extra refs may be held forever */
> + if (ret == -EAGAIN)
> + ret = -EBUSY;
> goto out;
> + }
> /* have to reacquire the folio after it got split */
> folio_unlock(src_folio);
> folio_put(src_folio);
Yeah, that makes sense to me.
Acked-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@xxxxxxxxxx>
--
Cheers,
David