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

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 10:26:43AM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Mon 09-04-18 12:40:44, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > The problem is that the mapping gfp flags are used not only for allocating
> > pages, but also for allocating the page cache data structures that hold
> > the pages.  F2FS is the only filesystem that set the __GFP_ZERO bit,
> > so it's the first time anyone's noticed that the page cache passes the
> > __GFP_ZERO bit through to the radix tree allocation routines, which
> > causes the radix tree nodes to be zeroed instead of constructed.
> > 
> > I think the right solution to this is:
> 
> This just hides the underlying problem that the node is not fully and
> properly initialized. Relying on the previous released state is just too
> subtle.

That's the fundamental design of slab-with-constructors.  The user provides
a constructor, so all newly allocagted objects are initialised to a known
state, then the user will restore the object to that state when it frees
the object to slab.

> Are you going to blacklist all potential gfp flags that come
> from the mapping? This is just unmaintainable! If anything this should
> be an explicit & with the allowed set of allowed flags.

Oh, I agree that using the set of flags used to allocate the page
in order to allocate the radix tree nodes is a pretty horrible idea.

Your suggestion, then, is:

-	error = radix_tree_preload(gfp_mask & ~__GFP_HIGHMEM);
+	error = radix_tree_preload(gfp_mask & GFP_RECLAIM_MASK);

correct?