[PATCH 0/2] mm: stop calling pmd_folio() on special PMDs

[Gregory Price]

Andrew: the first patch in this series will annoyingly conflict with the
zone device fixes (see Closes tag) where Sashiko found these. Ordering
on backporting is annoying here, not sure of the best approach.

===

Two page table walkers resolve the folio behind a PMD with pmd_folio(),
which is only valid for a PMD mapping a refcounted struct page:

  madvise_cold_or_pageout_pte_range()   mm/madvise.c
  queue_folios_pmd()                    mm/mempolicy.c

vmf_insert_pfn_pmd() installs special PMDs holding a raw pfn that need not
have a memmap entry at all.  Both walkers can reach one and fault on the
first folio field read.  The PTE halves of both already use
vm_normal_folio(); these two patches make the PMD halves match.

The four callers of vmf_insert_pfn_pmd(), and which walker each reaches:

  drivers/vfio/pci/vfio_pci_core.c        VM_PFNMAP     mempolicy
  drivers/gpu/drm/drm_gem_shmem_helper.c  VM_PFNMAP     mempolicy
  drivers/gpu/drm/panthor/panthor_gem.c   VM_PFNMAP     mempolicy
  drivers/hv/mshv_vtl_main.c              VM_MIXEDMAP   both

can_madv_lru_vma() rejects VM_PFNMAP, so only mshv_vtl_low reaches the
madvise walker, and that needs CAP_SYS_ADMIN.  queue_pages_walk_ops
supplies its own ->test_walk, so walk_page_test()'s generic VM_PFNMAP skip
never runs and vfio-pci is reachable by any process holding the device fd.
Hence the different stable tags.

One behaviour change: mbind(MPOL_MF_STRICT) over a PMD mapped VM_PFNMAP
region now returns 0 rather than -EIO.  The PTE loop already returned 0
there.  drm_gem_shmem and panthor are where this is observable, since they
PMD map pages that do have a memmap entry and so never faulted.

Reproducer
==========

No hardware needed.  An out of tree module stands in for the drivers above:
three misc devices, each with a ->huge_fault calling vmf_insert_pfn_pmd(),
plus VM_HUGEPAGE so the fault path takes the PMD branch.  

  /dev/pmdspec_mixed    VM_MIXEDMAP, pfn at the 1 TiB mark, no memmap
  /dev/pmdspec_pfnmap   VM_PFNMAP,   pfn at the 1 TiB mark, no memmap
  /dev/pmdspec_real     VM_PFNMAP,   real alloc_pages(PMD_ORDER) on node 0

Userspace maps the device into a PMD aligned window, reads one byte to
fault the PMD in, checks a module parameter to confirm it went in, then
issues the operation.  

  vng --run <bzImage> --user root --memory 4G --verbose \
      --append "numa=fake=2" \
      --exec "insmod pmdspec.ko && ./pmdspec_test <subtest>"

numa=fake=2 gives a node 1 to bind to; the module allocates its real page
on node 0, which is what makes queue_folio_required() true.

  subtest        operation                              parent   series
  --------------------------------------------------------------------
  madv_cold      madvise(MADV_COLD)                     oops     ret=0
  madv_pageout   madvise(MADV_PAGEOUT)                  oops     ret=0
  mbind_mixed    mbind(MPOL_BIND, n1, MPOL_MF_MOVE)     oops     ret=0
  mbind_pfnmap   mbind(MPOL_BIND, n1, MPOL_MF_STRICT)   oops     ret=0
  mbind_real     mbind(MPOL_BIND, n1, MPOL_MF_STRICT)   -EIO     ret=0

Two things the table shows that are easy to miss in the code:

  - mbind_mixed passes only MPOL_MF_MOVE.  MPOL_MF_STRICT is not needed for
    a VM_MIXEDMAP vma: walk_page_test() only skips VM_PFNMAP, and
    vma_migratable() is true for VM_MIXEDMAP.

  - mbind_real demonstrates the user visible change (-EIO -> 0)

Reported-by: sashiko-bot <sashiko-bot@xxxxxxxxxx>
Closes: https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260817220810.1175596-1-gourry%40gourry.net
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-5

Gregory Price (2):
  mm/mempolicy: use vm_normal_folio_pmd() in queue_folios_pmd()
  mm/madvise: use vm_normal_folio_pmd() in cold/pageout PMD range

 mm/madvise.c   |  4 +++-
 mm/mempolicy.c | 15 +++++++++------
 2 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

-- 
2.55.0