Re: [PATCH v1] arm64: mm: Don't sleep in split_kernel_leaf_mapping() when in atomic context

From: David Hildenbrand (Red Hat)
Date: Mon Nov 03 2025 - 10:41:58 EST



}

+static inline bool force_pte_mapping(void)
+{
+ bool bbml2 = system_capabilities_finalized() ?
+ system_supports_bbml2_noabort() : cpu_supports_bbml2_noabort();

You are only moving this function. Still, there is some room for improvement I want to point out :)

bbml2 could be a const (or a helper function like bbml2_supported).

+
+ return (!bbml2 && (rodata_full || arm64_kfence_can_set_direct_map() ||
+ is_realm_world())) ||
+ debug_pagealloc_enabled();


I suspect this could be made a bit easier to read.

if (debug_pagealloc_enabled())
return true;
if (bbml2)
return false;
return rodata_full || arm64_kfence_can_set_direct_map() || is_realm_world();


+}
+
static DEFINE_MUTEX(pgtable_split_lock);

int split_kernel_leaf_mapping(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
@@ -723,6 +733,16 @@ int split_kernel_leaf_mapping(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
if (!system_supports_bbml2_noabort())
return 0;

+ /*
+ * If the region is within a pte-mapped area, there is no need to try to
+ * split. Additionally, CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC and CONFIG_KFENCE may
+ * change permissions from softirq context so for those cases (which are
+ * always pte-mapped), we must not go any further because taking the
+ * mutex below may sleep.
+ */
+ if (force_pte_mapping() || is_kfence_address((void *)start))
+ return 0;
+

We're effectively performing two system_supports_bbml2_noabort() checks, similarly in
arch_kfence_init_pool().

I wonder if there is a clean way to avoid that.

I'm not super up-to-date on that code. Nothing else jumped at me.

--
Cheers

David