[PATCH 2/8] x86/mm: Always "broadcast" PMD setting operations

From: Dave Hansen
Date: Mon Apr 14 2025 - 13:34:59 EST



From: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Kernel PMDs can either be shared across processes or private to a
process. On 64-bit, they are always shared. 32-bit non-PAE hardware
does not have PMDs, but the kernel logically squishes them into the
PGD and treats them as private. Here are the four cases:

64-bit: Shared
32-bit: non-PAE: Private
32-bit: PAE+ PTI: Private
32-bit: PAE+noPTI: Shared

Note that 32-bit is all "Private" except for PAE+noPTI being an
oddball. The 32-bit+PAE+noPTI case will be made like the rest of
32-bit shortly.

But until that can be done, temporarily treat the 32-bit+PAE+noPTI
case as Private. This will do unnecessary walks across pgd_list and
unnecessary PTE setting but should be otherwise harmless.

Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---

b/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c | 4 ++--
b/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c | 11 +++--------
2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)

diff -puN arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c~always-sync-kernel-mapping-updates arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c
--- a/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c~always-sync-kernel-mapping-updates 2025-04-09 12:00:17.126319212 -0700
+++ b/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c 2025-04-09 12:53:28.082212490 -0700
@@ -889,7 +889,7 @@ static void __set_pmd_pte(pte_t *kpte, u
/* change init_mm */
set_pte_atomic(kpte, pte);
#ifdef CONFIG_X86_32
- if (!SHARED_KERNEL_PMD) {
+ {
struct page *page;

list_for_each_entry(page, &pgd_list, lru) {
@@ -1293,7 +1293,7 @@ static int collapse_pmd_page(pmd_t *pmd,
/* Queue the page table to be freed after TLB flush */
list_add(&page_ptdesc(pmd_page(old_pmd))->pt_list, pgtables);

- if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_X86_32) && !SHARED_KERNEL_PMD) {
+ if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_X86_32)) {
struct page *page;

/* Update all PGD tables to use the same large page */
diff -puN arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c~always-sync-kernel-mapping-updates arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c
--- a/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c~always-sync-kernel-mapping-updates 2025-04-09 12:00:17.128319285 -0700
+++ b/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c 2025-04-09 12:53:09.217519767 -0700
@@ -97,18 +97,13 @@ static void pgd_ctor(struct mm_struct *m
KERNEL_PGD_PTRS);
}

- /* list required to sync kernel mapping updates */
- if (!SHARED_KERNEL_PMD) {
- pgd_set_mm(pgd, mm);
- pgd_list_add(pgd);
- }
+ /* List used to sync kernel mapping updates */
+ pgd_set_mm(pgd, mm);
+ pgd_list_add(pgd);
}

static void pgd_dtor(pgd_t *pgd)
{
- if (SHARED_KERNEL_PMD)
- return;
-
spin_lock(&pgd_lock);
pgd_list_del(pgd);
spin_unlock(&pgd_lock);
_