Re: [PATCH -next 1/1] mm: hugetlb_vmemmap: Fix WARN_ON in vmemmap_remap_pte

[Catalin Marinas]

On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 02:06:00PM +0530, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
> On 10/26/22 12:31, Muchun Song wrote:
> >> On 10/25/22 12:06, Muchun Song wrote:
> >>>> On Oct 25, 2022, at 09:42, Wupeng Ma <mawupeng1@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>> From: Ma Wupeng <mawupeng1@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >>>>
> >>>> Commit f41f2ed43ca5 ("mm: hugetlb: free the vmemmap pages associated with
> >>>> each HugeTLB page") add vmemmap_remap_pte to remap the tail pages as
> >>>> read-only to catch illegal write operation to the tail page.
> >>>>
> >>>> However this will lead to WARN_ON in arm64 in __check_racy_pte_update()
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for your finding this issue.
> >>>
> >>>> since this may lead to dirty state cleaned. This check is introduced by
> >>>> commit 2f4b829c625e ("arm64: Add support for hardware updates of the
> >>>> access and dirty pte bits") and the initial check is as follow:
> >>>>
> >>>> BUG_ON(pte_write(*ptep) && !pte_dirty(pte));
> >>>>
> >>>> Since we do need to mark this pte as read-only to catch illegal write
> >>>> operation to the tail pages, use set_pte  to replace set_pte_at to bypass
> >>>> this check.
> >>>
> >>> In theory, the waring does not affect anything since the tail vmemmap
> >>> pages are supposed to be read-only. So, skipping this check for vmemmap
> >>
> >> Tails vmemmap pages are supposed to be read-only, in practice but their
> >> backing pages do have pte_write() enabled. Otherwise the VM_WARN_ONCE()
> >> warning would not have triggered.
> > 
> > Right.
> > 
> >>
> >>        VM_WARN_ONCE(pte_write(old_pte) && !pte_dirty(pte),
> >>                     "%s: racy dirty state clearing: 0x%016llx -> 0x%016llx",
> >>                     __func__, pte_val(old_pte), pte_val(pte));
> >>
> >> Also, is not it true that the pte being remapped into a different page
> >> as read only, than what it had originally (which will be freed up) i.e 
> >> the PFN in 'old_pte' and 'pte' will be different. Hence is there still
> > 
> > Right.
> > 
> >> a possibility for a race condition even when the PFN changes ?
> > 
> > Sorry, I didn't get this question. Did you mean the PTE is changed from
> > new (pte) to the old one (old_pte) by the hardware because of the update
> > of dirty bit when a concurrent write operation to the tail vmemmap page?
> 
> No, but is not vmemmap_remap_pte() reuses walk->reuse_page for all remaining
> tails pages ? Is not there a PFN change, along with access permission change
> involved in this remapping process ?

For the record, as we discussed offline, changing the output address
(pfn) of a pte is not safe without break-before-make if at least one of
the mappings was writeable. The caller (vmemmap_remap_pte()) would need
to be fixed to first invalidate the pte and then write the new pte. I
assume no other CPU accesses this part of the vmemmap while the pte is
being remapped.

-- 
Catalin