[PATCH v6 0/7] Optimize mremap during mutual alignment within PMD

From: Joel Fernandes (Google)
Date: Sun Sep 03 2023 - 11:13:41 EST


Hello!

Here is v6 of the mremap start address optimization / fix for exec warning.
Should be hopefully final now and only 2/7 and 6/7 need a tag. Thanks a lot to
Lorenzo and Linus for the detailed reviews.

Description of patches
======================
These patches optimizes the start addresses in move_page_tables() and tests the
changes. It addresses a warning [1] that occurs due to a downward, overlapping
move on a mutually-aligned offset within a PMD during exec. By initiating the
copy process at the PMD level when such alignment is present, we can prevent
this warning and speed up the copying process at the same time. Linus Torvalds
suggested this idea. Check the individual patches for more details.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/ZB2GTBD%2FLWTrkOiO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/

History of patches:
v5->v6:
1. Reworking the stack case a bit more and tested it (should be final now).
2. Other small nits.

v4->v5:
1. Rebased on mainline.
2. Several improvement suggestions from Lorenzo.

v3->v4:
1. Care to be taken to move purely within a VMA, in other words this check
in call_align_down():
if (vma->vm_start != addr_masked)
return false;

As an example of why this is needed:
Consider the following range which is 2MB aligned and is
a part of a larger 10MB range which is not shown. Each
character is 256KB below making the source and destination
2MB each. The lower case letters are moved (s to d) and the
upper case letters are not moved.

|DDDDddddSSSSssss|

If we align down 'ssss' to start from the 'SSSS', we will end up destroying
SSSS. The above if statement prevents that and I verified it.

I also added a test for this in the last patch.

2. Handle the stack case separately. We do not care about #1 for stack movement
because the 'SSSS' does not matter during this move. Further we need to do this
to prevent the stack move warning.

if (!for_stack && vma->vm_start <= addr_masked)
return false;

v2->v3:
1. Masked address was stored in int, fixed it to unsigned long to avoid truncation.
2. We now handle moves happening purely within a VMA, a new test is added to handle this.
3. More code comments.

v1->v2:
1. Trigger the optimization for mremaps smaller than a PMD. I tested by tracing
that it works correctly.

2. Fix issue with bogus return value found by Linus if we broke out of the
above loop for the first PMD itself.

v1: Initial RFC.

Joel Fernandes (1):
selftests: mm: Add a test for moving from an offset from start of
mapping

Joel Fernandes (Google) (6):
mm/mremap: Optimize the start addresses in move_page_tables()
mm/mremap: Allow moves within the same VMA for stack moves
selftests: mm: Fix failure case when new remap region was not found
selftests: mm: Add a test for mutually aligned moves > PMD size
selftests: mm: Add a test for remapping to area immediately after
existing mapping
selftests: mm: Add a test for remapping within a range

fs/exec.c | 2 +-
include/linux/mm.h | 2 +-
mm/mremap.c | 73 +++++-
tools/testing/selftests/mm/mremap_test.c | 301 +++++++++++++++++++----
4 files changed, 329 insertions(+), 49 deletions(-)

--
2.42.0.283.g2d96d420d3-goog