Re: [PATCH v5 4/5] arm64: mm: implement the architecture-specific clear_flush_young_ptes()

From: David Hildenbrand (Arm)

Date: Mon Feb 09 2026 - 04:58:34 EST


On 2/9/26 10:36, Baolin Wang wrote:


On 2/9/26 5:09 PM, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
On 1/29/26 02:42, Baolin Wang wrote:



Indeed. I previously discussed with Ryan whether using pte_cont() was enough, and we believed that invalid PTEs wouldn’t have the PTE_CONT bit set. But we clearly missed the device-folio cases. Thanks for reporting.

Andrew, could you please squash the following fix into this patch? If you prefer a new version, please let me know. Thanks.

Isn't the real problem that we should never ever ever ever, try clearing the young bit on a non-present pte?

See damon_ptep_mkold() how that is handled with the flushing/notify.

There needs to be a pte_present() check in the caller.

The handling of ZONE_DEVICE memory in check_pte() makes me me doubt my earlier understanding. And I think you are right.

    } else if (pte_present(ptent)) {
        pfn = pte_pfn(ptent);
    } else {
        const softleaf_t entry = softleaf_from_pte(ptent);

        /* Handle un-addressable ZONE_DEVICE memory */
        if (!softleaf_is_device_private(entry) &&
            !softleaf_is_device_exclusive(entry))
            return false;

        pfn = softleaf_to_pfn(entry);
    }


BUT

I recall that folio_referenced() should never apply to ZONE_DEVICE folios. folio_referenced() is only called from memory reclaim code, and ZONE_DEVICE pages never get reclaimed through vmscan.c

Thanks for clarifying. So I can drop the pte valid check.

We should probably add a safety check in folio_referenced(), warning
if we would ever get a ZONE_DEVICE folio passed.

Can someone look into that ? :)

--
Cheers,

David