Re: [RFC PATCH 1/3] mm, proc: be more verbose about unstable VMA flags in /proc/<pid>/smaps

[Dan Williams]

On Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 2:35 AM Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx>
>
> Even though vma flags exported via /proc/<pid>/smaps are explicitly
> documented to be not guaranteed for future compatibility the warning
> doesn't go far enough because it doesn't mention semantic changes to
> those flags. And they are important as well because these flags are
> a deep implementation internal to the MM code and the semantic might
> change at any time.
>
> Let's consider two recent examples:
> http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20181002100531.GC4135@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> : commit e1fb4a086495 "dax: remove VM_MIXEDMAP for fsdax and device dax" has
> : removed VM_MIXEDMAP flag from DAX VMAs. Now our testing shows that in the
> : mean time certain customer of ours started poking into /proc/<pid>/smaps
> : and looks at VMA flags there and if VM_MIXEDMAP is missing among the VMA
> : flags, the application just fails to start complaining that DAX support is
> : missing in the kernel.
>
> http://lkml.kernel.org/r/alpine.DEB.2.21.1809241054050.224429@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> : Commit 1860033237d4 ("mm: make PR_SET_THP_DISABLE immediately active")
> : introduced a regression in that userspace cannot always determine the set
> : of vmas where thp is ineligible.
> : Userspace relies on the "nh" flag being emitted as part of /proc/pid/smaps
> : to determine if a vma is eligible to be backed by hugepages.
> : Previous to this commit, prctl(PR_SET_THP_DISABLE, 1) would cause thp to
> : be disabled and emit "nh" as a flag for the corresponding vmas as part of
> : /proc/pid/smaps.  After the commit, thp is disabled by means of an mm
> : flag and "nh" is not emitted.
> : This causes smaps parsing libraries to assume a vma is eligible for thp
> : and ends up puzzling the user on why its memory is not backed by thp.
>
> In both cases userspace was relying on a semantic of a specific VMA
> flag. The primary reason why that happened is a lack of a proper
> internface. While this has been worked on and it will be fixed properly,
> it seems that our wording could see some refinement and be more vocal
> about semantic aspect of these flags as well.
>
> Cc: Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx>
> Cc: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt | 4 +++-
>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
> index 12a5e6e693b6..b1fda309f067 100644
> --- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
> @@ -496,7 +496,9 @@ flags associated with the particular virtual memory area in two letter encoded
>
>  Note that there is no guarantee that every flag and associated mnemonic will
>  be present in all further kernel releases. Things get changed, the flags may
> -be vanished or the reverse -- new added.
> +be vanished or the reverse -- new added. Interpretatation of their meaning
> +might change in future as well. So each consumnent of these flags have to
> +follow each specific kernel version for the exact semantic.

Can we start to claw some of this back? Perhaps with a config option
to hide the flags to put applications on notice? I recall that when I
introduced CONFIG_IO_STRICT_DEVMEM it caused enough regressions that
distros did not enable it, but now a few years out I'm finding that it
is enabled in more places.

In any event,

Acked-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@xxxxxxxxx>