Re: [PATCH V2 1/2] mm/khugepaged: do synchronous writeback for MADV_COLLAPSE

[David Hildenbrand (Red Hat)]

On 11/20/25 07:50, Shivank Garg wrote:
> When MADV_COLLAPSE is called on file-backed mappings (e.g., executable
> text sections), the pages may still be dirty from recent writes and
> cause collapse to fail with -EINVAL. This is particularly problematic
> for freshly copied executables on filesystems, where page cache folios
> remain dirty until background writeback completes.
>
> The current code in collapse_file() triggers async writeback via
> filemap_flush() and expects khugepaged to revisit the page later.
> However, MADV_COLLAPSE is a synchronous operation where userspace
> expects immediate results.
>
> Perform synchronous writeback in madvise_collapse() before attempting
> collapse to avoid failing on first attempt.
>
> Reported-by: Branden Moore <Branden.Moore@xxxxxxx>
> Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/4e26fe5e-7374-467c-a333-9dd48f85d7cc@xxxxxxx
> Fixes: 34488399fa08 ("mm/madvise: add file and shmem support to MADV_COLLAPSE")
> Suggested-by: David Hildenbrand <david@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Shivank Garg <shivankg@xxxxxxx>
> ---
>   mm/khugepaged.c | 26 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>   1 file changed, 26 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/mm/khugepaged.c b/mm/khugepaged.c
> index 97d1b2824386..066a332c76ad 100644
> --- a/mm/khugepaged.c
> +++ b/mm/khugepaged.c
> @@ -22,6 +22,7 @@
>   #include <linux/dax.h>
>   #include <linux/ksm.h>
>   #include <linux/pgalloc.h>
> +#include <linux/backing-dev.h>
>   
>   #include <asm/tlb.h>
>   #include "internal.h"
> @@ -2784,6 +2785,31 @@ int madvise_collapse(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long start,
>   	hstart = (start + ~HPAGE_PMD_MASK) & HPAGE_PMD_MASK;
>   	hend = end & HPAGE_PMD_MASK;
>   
> +	/*
> +	 * For file-backed VMAs, perform synchronous writeback to ensure
> +	 * dirty folios are flushed before attempting collapse. This avoids
> +	 * failing on the first attempt when freshly-written executable text
> +	 * is still dirty in the page cache.
> +	 */
> +	if (!vma_is_anonymous(vma) && vma->vm_file) {
> +		struct address_space *mapping = vma->vm_file->f_mapping;
> +
> +		if (mapping_can_writeback(mapping)) {
> +			pgoff_t pgoff_start = linear_page_index(vma, hstart);
> +			pgoff_t pgoff_end = linear_page_index(vma, hend);
> +			loff_t lstart = (loff_t)pgoff_start << PAGE_SHIFT;
> +			loff_t lend = ((loff_t)pgoff_end << PAGE_SHIFT) - 1;
> +

Hm, so we always do that, without any indication that there actually is 
something dirty there.

Internally filemap_write_and_wait_range() uses something called 
mapping_needs_writeback(), but it also applies to the complete file, not 
a range.

Wouldn't it be better do do that only if we detect that there is 
actually a dirty folio in the range?

That is, if we find any dirty folio in hpage_collapse_scan_file() and we 
are in madvise, do that dance here and retry?

--
Cheers

David