[PATCH AUTOSEL 6.14 04/18] x86/mm: Clear _PAGE_DIRTY for kernel mappings when we clear _PAGE_RW

From: Sasha Levin
Date: Mon Mar 31 2025 - 10:37:30 EST


From: "Matthew Wilcox (Oracle)" <willy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

[ Upstream commit c1fcf41cf37f7a3fd3bbf6f0c04aba3ea4258888 ]

The bit pattern of _PAGE_DIRTY set and _PAGE_RW clear is used to mark
shadow stacks. This is currently checked for in mk_pte() but not
pfn_pte(). If we add the check to pfn_pte(), it catches vfree()
calling set_direct_map_invalid_noflush() which calls
__change_page_attr() which loads the old protection bits from the
PTE, clears the specified bits and uses pfn_pte() to construct the
new PTE.

We should, therefore, for kernel mappings, clear the _PAGE_DIRTY bit
consistently whenever we clear _PAGE_RW. I opted to do it in the
callers in case we want to use __change_page_attr() to create shadow
stacks inside the kernel at some point in the future. Arguably, we
might also want to clear _PAGE_ACCESSED here.

Note that the 3 functions involved:

__set_pages_np()
kernel_map_pages_in_pgd()
kernel_unmap_pages_in_pgd()

Only ever manipulate non-swappable kernel mappings, so maintaining
the DIRTY:1|RW:0 special pattern for shadow stacks and DIRTY:0
pattern for non-shadow-stack entries can be maintained consistently
and doesn't result in the unintended clearing of a live dirty bit
that could corrupt (destroy) dirty bit information for user mappings.

Reported-by: kernel test robot <oliver.sang@xxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Matthew Wilcox (Oracle) <willy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/174051422675.10177.13226545170101706336.tip-bot2@tip-bot2
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/oe-lkp/202502241646.719f4651-lkp@xxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c | 6 +++---
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c b/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c
index ef4514d64c052..b491d8190a6c5 100644
--- a/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c
+++ b/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c
@@ -2420,7 +2420,7 @@ static int __set_pages_np(struct page *page, int numpages)
.pgd = NULL,
.numpages = numpages,
.mask_set = __pgprot(0),
- .mask_clr = __pgprot(_PAGE_PRESENT | _PAGE_RW),
+ .mask_clr = __pgprot(_PAGE_PRESENT | _PAGE_RW | _PAGE_DIRTY),
.flags = CPA_NO_CHECK_ALIAS };

/*
@@ -2507,7 +2507,7 @@ int __init kernel_map_pages_in_pgd(pgd_t *pgd, u64 pfn, unsigned long address,
.pgd = pgd,
.numpages = numpages,
.mask_set = __pgprot(0),
- .mask_clr = __pgprot(~page_flags & (_PAGE_NX|_PAGE_RW)),
+ .mask_clr = __pgprot(~page_flags & (_PAGE_NX|_PAGE_RW|_PAGE_DIRTY)),
.flags = CPA_NO_CHECK_ALIAS,
};

@@ -2550,7 +2550,7 @@ int __init kernel_unmap_pages_in_pgd(pgd_t *pgd, unsigned long address,
.pgd = pgd,
.numpages = numpages,
.mask_set = __pgprot(0),
- .mask_clr = __pgprot(_PAGE_PRESENT | _PAGE_RW),
+ .mask_clr = __pgprot(_PAGE_PRESENT | _PAGE_RW | _PAGE_DIRTY),
.flags = CPA_NO_CHECK_ALIAS,
};

--
2.39.5