Re: [PATCH v1 00/11] Zero page->private when freeing pages

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2026 at 10:26:30PM -0500, Zi Yan wrote:
> Based on a recent discussion with David Hildenbrand on page->private
> is not zero when a page is freed[1], this patchset is trying to fix all
> users do not zero ->private when freeing a page and add checks to make
> sure all freed pages have ->private set to zero. For compound pages,
> both head page and tail pages need to have ->private set to zero.

Sorry, I didn't notice this conversation.  It seems entirely unnecessary
to me to zero out page->private before freeing.

I'm a bit confused that ac1ea219590c was needed too; I thought we
cleared page->private in the allocation path, and I don't see why
it needs to be cleared in the freeing path.  split_page() should be
clearing page->private.

Can we discuss this at the THP Cabal meeting on Wednesday?  I don't
think that introducing this new rule that page->private must be cleared
by the users is a good idea.