Re: [syzbot] [arm?] WARNING in copy_highpage

From: David Hildenbrand

Date: Mon Oct 06 2025 - 03:55:37 EST


Modules linked in:
CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 25189 Comm: syz.2.7336 Not tainted syzkaller #0 PREEMPT
Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT)
pstate: 00402009 (nzcv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--)
pc : copy_highpage+0x150/0x334 arch/arm64/mm/copypage.c:55
lr : copy_highpage+0xb4/0x334 arch/arm64/mm/copypage.c:25
sp : ffff800088053940
x29: ffff800088053940 x28: ffffc1ffc0acf800 x27: ffff800088053b10
x26: ffffc1ffc0acf808 x25: ffffc1ffc037b1c0 x24: ffffc1ffc037b1c0
x23: ffffc1ffc0acf800 x22: ffffc1ffc0acf800 x21: fff000002b3e0000
x20: fff000000dec7000 x19: ffffc1ffc037b1c0 x18: 0000000000000000
x17: fff07ffffcffa000 x16: ffff800080008000 x15: 0000000000000001
x14: 0000000000000000 x13: 0000000000000003 x12: 000000000006d9ad
x11: 0000000000000000 x10: 0000000000000010 x9 : 0000000000000000
x8 : 0000000000000000 x7 : 0000000000000000 x6 : 0000000000000000
x5 : ffff800088053b18 x4 : ffff80008032df94 x3 : 00000000ff000000
x2 : 01ffc00003000001 x1 : 01ffc00003000001 x0 : 01ffc00003000001
Call trace:
try_page_mte_tagging arch/arm64/include/asm/mte.h:93 [inline] (P)
copy_highpage+0x150/0x334 arch/arm64/mm/copypage.c:55 (P)
copy_mc_highpage include/linux/highmem.h:383 [inline]
folio_mc_copy+0x44/0x6c mm/util.c:740
__migrate_folio.constprop.0+0xc4/0x23c mm/migrate.c:851
migrate_folio+0x1c/0x2c mm/migrate.c:882
move_to_new_folio+0x58/0x144 mm/migrate.c:1097
migrate_folio_move mm/migrate.c:1370 [inline]
migrate_folios_move mm/migrate.c:1719 [inline]
migrate_pages_batch+0xaf4/0x1024 mm/migrate.c:1966
migrate_pages_sync mm/migrate.c:2023 [inline]
migrate_pages+0xb9c/0xcdc mm/migrate.c:2105
do_mbind+0x20c/0x4a4 mm/mempolicy.c:1539
kernel_mbind mm/mempolicy.c:1682 [inline]
__do_sys_mbind mm/mempolicy.c:1756 [inline]

I don't think we ever stressed MTE with mbind before. I have a suspicion
this problem has been around for some time.

My reading of do_mbind() is that it ends up allocating pages for
migrating into via alloc_migration_target_by_mpol() ->
folio_alloc_mpol(). Pages returned should be untagged and uninitialised
unless the PG_* flags have not been cleared on a prior free. Or
migrate_pages_batch() somehow reuses some pages instead of reallocating.

Staring at __migrate_folio(), I assume we can end up successfully calling folio_mc_copy(), but then failing in __folio_migrate_mapping().

Seems to be as easy as failing the folio_ref_freeze() in __folio_migrate_mapping().

We return -EAGAIN in that case, making the caller retry, stumbling into an already-tagged page. (with the same source / destination parameters) IIRC)

So likely this is simply us re-doing the copy after a migration failed after the copy.

Could it happen that we are calling it with a different source/destination combination the second time? I don't think so, but I am not 100% sure.

The most reliable way would be to un-tag in case folio_mc_copy succeeded but __folio_migrate_mapping() failed.

I'm also wondering whether we can simply perform the copy after the __folio_migrate_mapping() call: the src folio is locked and unmapped, nobody can really modify it. Same for the dst folio.

--
Cheers

David / dhildenb