Re: [PATCH v2] x86/fpu: Use vmemdup_user() in xstateregs_set()

From: Thorsten Blum

Date: Mon Aug 31 2026 - 06:20:11 EST


On Wed, Aug 05, 2026 at 04:03:45PM +0200, Thorsten Blum wrote:
> Replace the open-coded vmalloc() and copy_from_user() with
> vmemdup_user() to simplify xstateregs_set().
>
> vmemdup_user() returns an ERR_PTR() on failure, preserving the existing
> -ENOMEM and -EFAULT error codes. Since vmemdup_user() is backed by
> kvmalloc(), use kvfree() to free the buffer instead.
>
> Return early on error and drop the obsolete out label.
>
> Performance should be similar, and xstateregs_set() is not a hot path.
> Page alignment should not matter because the buffer is only used as a
> memcpy() source in copy_uabi_from_kernel_to_xstate().
>
> The allocation behavior differs because vmemdup_user() uses GFP_USER,
> which adds __GFP_HARDWALL and may affect cpuset allocations.
>
> tools/testing/selftests/x86/avx_64 passed on an Alder Lake CPU.
>
> Signed-off-by: Thorsten Blum <thorsten.blum@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> Changes in v2:
> - Add performance analysis and selftest result to the changelog (Ingo)
> - v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260720195534.70111-3-thorsten.blum@xxxxxxxxx/
> ---
> arch/x86/kernel/fpu/regset.c | 17 ++++++-----------
> 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

Hi Ingo,

Could you please give this another look now that I've added the
performance analysis to the changelog? Is there anything else missing?

Thanks,
Thorsten

> diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/fpu/regset.c b/arch/x86/kernel/fpu/regset.c
> index 0986c2200adc..8dc9de732c78 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/kernel/fpu/regset.c
> +++ b/arch/x86/kernel/fpu/regset.c
> @@ -3,7 +3,8 @@
> * FPU register's regset abstraction, for ptrace, core dumps, etc.
> */
> #include <linux/sched/task_stack.h>
> -#include <linux/vmalloc.h>
> +#include <linux/slab.h>
> +#include <linux/string.h>
>
> #include <asm/fpu/api.h>
> #include <asm/fpu/signal.h>
> @@ -157,21 +158,15 @@ int xstateregs_set(struct task_struct *target, const struct user_regset *regset,
> return -EFAULT;
>
> if (!kbuf) {
> - tmpbuf = vmalloc(count);
> - if (!tmpbuf)
> - return -ENOMEM;
> -
> - if (copy_from_user(tmpbuf, ubuf, count)) {
> - ret = -EFAULT;
> - goto out;
> - }
> + tmpbuf = vmemdup_user(ubuf, count);
> + if (IS_ERR(tmpbuf))
> + return PTR_ERR(tmpbuf);
> }
>
> fpu_force_restore(fpu);
> ret = copy_uabi_from_kernel_to_xstate(fpu->fpstate, kbuf ?: tmpbuf, &target->thread.pkru);
>
> -out:
> - vfree(tmpbuf);
> + kvfree(tmpbuf);
> return ret;
> }
>