Re: [RFCv2 08/16] KVM: Use GUP instead of copy_from/to_user() to access guest memory

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 01:25:59AM -0700, John Hubbard wrote:
> Should copy_to_guest() use pin_user_pages_unlocked() instead of gup_unlocked?
> We wrote a  "Case 5" in Documentation/core-api/pin_user_pages.rst, just for this
> situation, I think:
> 
> 
> CASE 5: Pinning in order to write to the data within the page
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Even though neither DMA nor Direct IO is involved, just a simple case of "pin,
> write to a page's data, unpin" can cause a problem. Case 5 may be considered a
> superset of Case 1, plus Case 2, plus anything that invokes that pattern. In
> other words, if the code is neither Case 1 nor Case 2, it may still require
> FOLL_PIN, for patterns like this:
> 
> Correct (uses FOLL_PIN calls):
>     pin_user_pages()
>     write to the data within the pages
>     unpin_user_pages()

Case 5 is crap though.  That bug should have been fixed by getting
the locking right.  ie:

	get_user_pages_fast();
	lock_page();
	kmap();
	set_bit();
	kunmap();
	set_page_dirty()
	unlock_page();

I should have vetoed that patch at the time, but I was busy with other things.