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

[Zi Yan]

On 23 Feb 2026, at 9:03, Christoph Hellwig wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 23, 2026 at 09:00:57AM -0500, Zi Yan wrote:
>>> awkward interface.  Don't do that.
>>
>> Page allocator hands the user a zero ->private. I think it is reasonable
>> to require the user to return a zero ->private. Restoring things back
>> to their original states is a common standard, isn't it? And most of
>> users do that.
>
> No other relevant interface requires private data pointers, as that would
> be silly and cause tons of bugs.

filesystems use ->private and zero it before freeing a page. Can you provide a concrete
example showing that requirement will cause bugs or make other functions hard to
implement? With good examples, we can document them and make sure MM handle them
properly (i.e., zeroing ->private for them).

--
Best Regards,
Yan, Zi