[PATCH v7 3/6] mm/memory-failure: report MF_MSG_KERNEL for unrecoverable kernel pages

From: Breno Leitao

Date: Wed May 13 2026 - 12:20:19 EST


The previous patch teaches get_any_page() to return -ENOTRECOVERABLE
for stable unhandlable kernel pages (PG_reserved, slab, vmalloc, page
tables, kernel stacks, ...). memory_failure() still folds every
negative return into MF_MSG_GET_HWPOISON, so callers that want to
react to the unrecoverable cases (a panic option, smarter logging)
cannot tell them apart from transient page-allocator races.

Turn the post-call branch into a switch over the get_hwpoison_page()
return code: map -ENOTRECOVERABLE to MF_MSG_KERNEL and any other
negative return to MF_MSG_GET_HWPOISON. case 0 keeps the existing
free-buddy / kernel-high-order handling and case 1 falls through to
the rest of memory_failure() unchanged.

The MF_MSG_KERNEL label and tracepoint string are kept as
"reserved kernel page" to avoid breaking userspace tools that match
on those literals; the enum value still adequately tags the failure
even though it now also covers slab, vmalloc, page tables and kernel
stack pages.

Suggested-by: David Hildenbrand <david@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
mm/memory-failure.c | 17 +++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/memory-failure.c b/mm/memory-failure.c
index bae883df3ccb2..4b3a5d4190a07 100644
--- a/mm/memory-failure.c
+++ b/mm/memory-failure.c
@@ -2410,7 +2410,8 @@ int memory_failure(unsigned long pfn, int flags)
* that may make page_ref_freeze()/page_ref_unfreeze() mismatch.
*/
res = get_hwpoison_page(p, flags);
- if (!res) {
+ switch (res) {
+ case 0:
if (is_free_buddy_page(p)) {
if (take_page_off_buddy(p)) {
page_ref_inc(p);
@@ -2429,7 +2430,19 @@ int memory_failure(unsigned long pfn, int flags)
res = action_result(pfn, MF_MSG_KERNEL_HIGH_ORDER, MF_IGNORED);
}
goto unlock_mutex;
- } else if (res < 0) {
+ case 1:
+ /* Got a refcount on a handlable page. */
+ break;
+ case -ENOTRECOVERABLE:
+ /*
+ * Stable unhandlable kernel-owned page (PG_reserved,
+ * slab, vmalloc, page tables, kernel stacks, ...).
+ * No recovery possible.
+ */
+ res = action_result(pfn, MF_MSG_KERNEL, MF_IGNORED);
+ goto unlock_mutex;
+ default:
+ /* Transient lifecycle race with the page allocator. */
res = action_result(pfn, MF_MSG_GET_HWPOISON, MF_IGNORED);
goto unlock_mutex;
}

--
2.53.0-Meta