Re: [PATCH] mm: workingset: fix NULL ptr dereference

From: Matthew Wilcox
Date: Mon Apr 09 2018 - 07:14:10 EST


On Mon, Apr 09, 2018 at 12:09:30PM +0900, Minchan Kim wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 08, 2018 at 07:49:25PM -0700, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 09, 2018 at 10:58:15AM +0900, Minchan Kim wrote:
> > > It assumes shadow entry of radix tree relies on the init state
> > > that node->private_list allocated should be list_empty state.
> > > Currently, it's initailized in SLAB constructor which means
> > > node of radix tree would be initialized only when *slub allocates
> > > new page*, not *new object*. So, if some FS or subsystem pass
> > > gfp_mask to __GFP_ZERO, slub allocator will do memset blindly.
> >
> > Wait, what? Who's declaring their radix tree with GFP_ZERO flags?
> > I don't see anyone using INIT_RADIX_TREE or RADIX_TREE or RADIX_TREE_INIT
> > with GFP_ZERO.
>
> Look at fs/f2fs/inode.c
> mapping_set_gfp_mask(inode->i_mapping, GFP_F2FS_ZERO);
>
> __add_to_page_cache_locked
> radix_tree_maybe_preload
>
> add_to_page_cache_lru
>
> What's the wrong with setting __GFP_ZERO with mapping->gfp_mask?

Because it's a stupid thing to do. Pages are allocated and then filled
from disk. Zeroing them before DMAing to them is just a waste of time.