Re: [PATCH] KVM: arm64: Correctly handle the mmio faulting

[Marc Zyngier]

On Thu, 22 Apr 2021 03:02:00 +0100,
Gavin Shan <gshan@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Hi Marc,
> 
> On 4/21/21 9:59 PM, Marc Zyngier wrote:
> > On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 07:17:44 +0100,
> > Keqian Zhu <zhukeqian1@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> On 2021/4/21 14:20, Gavin Shan wrote:
> >>> On 4/21/21 12:59 PM, Keqian Zhu wrote:
> >>>> On 2020/10/22 0:16, Santosh Shukla wrote:
> >>>>> The Commit:6d674e28 introduces a notion to detect and handle the
> >>>>> device mapping. The commit checks for the VM_PFNMAP flag is set
> >>>>> in vma->flags and if set then marks force_pte to true such that
> >>>>> if force_pte is true then ignore the THP function check
> >>>>> (/transparent_hugepage_adjust()).
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> There could be an issue with the VM_PFNMAP flag setting and checking.
> >>>>> For example consider a case where the mdev vendor driver register's
> >>>>> the vma_fault handler named vma_mmio_fault(), which maps the
> >>>>> host MMIO region in-turn calls remap_pfn_range() and maps
> >>>>> the MMIO's vma space. Where, remap_pfn_range implicitly sets
> >>>>> the VM_PFNMAP flag into vma->flags.
> >>>> Could you give the name of the mdev vendor driver that triggers this issue?
> >>>> I failed to find one according to your description. Thanks.
> >>>> 
> >>> 
> >>> I think it would be fixed in driver side to set VM_PFNMAP in
> >>> its mmap() callback (call_mmap()), like vfio PCI driver does.
> >>> It means it won't be delayed until page fault is issued and
> >>> remap_pfn_range() is called. It's determined from the beginning
> >>> that the vma associated the mdev vendor driver is serving as
> >>> PFN remapping purpose. So the vma should be populated completely,
> >>> including the VM_PFNMAP flag before it becomes visible to user
> >>> space.
> > 
> > Why should that be a requirement? Lazy populating of the VMA should be
> > perfectly acceptable if the fault can only happen on the CPU side.
> > 
> 
> It isn't a requirement and the drivers needn't follow strictly. I checked
> several drivers before looking into the patch and found almost all the
> drivers have VM_PFNMAP set at mmap() time. In drivers/vfio/vfio-pci.c,
> there is a comment as below, but it doesn't reveal too much about why
> we can't set VM_PFNMAP at fault time.
> 
> static int vfio_pci_mmap(void *device_data, struct vm_area_struct *vma)
> {
>       :
>         /*
>          * See remap_pfn_range(), called from vfio_pci_fault() but we can't
>          * change vm_flags within the fault handler.  Set them now.
>          */
>         vma->vm_flags |= VM_IO | VM_PFNMAP | VM_DONTEXPAND | VM_DONTDUMP;
>         vma->vm_ops = &vfio_pci_mmap_ops;
> 
>         return 0;
> }
> 
> To set these flags in advance does have advantages. For example,
> VM_DONTEXPAND prevents the vma to be merged with another
> one. VM_DONTDUMP make this vma isn't eligible for
> coredump. Otherwise, the address space, which is associated with the
> vma is accessed and unnecessary page faults are triggered on
> coredump.  VM_IO and VM_PFNMAP avoids to walk the page frames
> associated with the vma since we don't have valid PFN in the
> mapping.

But PCI clearly isn't the case we are dealing with here, and not
everything is VFIO either. I can *today* create a driver that
implements a mmap+fault handler, call mmap() on it, pass the result to
a memslot, and get to the exact same result Santosh describes.

No PCI, no VFIO, just a random driver. We are *required* to handle
that.

	M.

-- 
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.