[PATCH] mm/damon/vaddr: do not repeat pte_offset_map_lock() until success

From: SeongJae Park

Date: Mon Sep 29 2025 - 20:44:16 EST


DAMON's virtual address space operation set implementation (vaddr) calls
pte_offset_map_lock() inside the page table walk callback function.
This is for reading and writing page table accessed bits. If
pte_offset_map_lock() fails, it retries by returning the page table walk
callback function with ACTION_AGAIN.

pte_offset_map_lock() can continuously fail if the target is a pmd
migration entry, though. Hence it could cause an infinite page table
walk if the migration cannot be done until the page table walk is
finished. This indeed caused a soft lockup when CPU hotplugging and
DAMON were running in parallel.

Avoid the infinite loop by simply not retrying the page table walk.
DAMON is promising only a best-effort accuracy, so missing access to
such pages is no problem.

Reported-by: Xinyu Zheng <zhengxinyu6@xxxxxxxxxx>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/20250918030029.2652607-1-zhengxinyu6@xxxxxxxxxx
Fixes: 7780d04046a2 ("mm/pagewalkers: ACTION_AGAIN if pte_offset_map_lock() fails")
Cc: <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> # 6.5.x
Cc: Hugh Dickins <hughd@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: SeongJae Park <sj@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
mm/damon/vaddr.c | 8 ++------
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/damon/vaddr.c b/mm/damon/vaddr.c
index 8c048f9b129e..7e834467b2d8 100644
--- a/mm/damon/vaddr.c
+++ b/mm/damon/vaddr.c
@@ -328,10 +328,8 @@ static int damon_mkold_pmd_entry(pmd_t *pmd, unsigned long addr,
}

pte = pte_offset_map_lock(walk->mm, pmd, addr, &ptl);
- if (!pte) {
- walk->action = ACTION_AGAIN;
+ if (!pte)
return 0;
- }
if (!pte_present(ptep_get(pte)))
goto out;
damon_ptep_mkold(pte, walk->vma, addr);
@@ -481,10 +479,8 @@ static int damon_young_pmd_entry(pmd_t *pmd, unsigned long addr,
#endif /* CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE */

pte = pte_offset_map_lock(walk->mm, pmd, addr, &ptl);
- if (!pte) {
- walk->action = ACTION_AGAIN;
+ if (!pte)
return 0;
- }
ptent = ptep_get(pte);
if (!pte_present(ptent))
goto out;

base-commit: 3169a901e935bc1f2d2eec0171abcf524b7747e4
--
2.39.5