Re: [PATCH 3/3] s390/mm: fix mis-accounting of pgtable_bytes

From: Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@de.ibm.com>
To: Li Wang <liwang@redhat.com>
Cc: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>,
	Janosch Frank <frankja@linux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	"Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>,
	Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Linux-MM <linux-mm@kvack.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/3] s390/mm: fix mis-accounting of pgtable_bytes
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2018 07:31:49 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20181031073149.55ddc085@mschwideX1> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAEemH2cHNFsiDqPF32K6TNn-XoXCRT0wP4ccAeah4bKHt=FKFA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 14:18:33 +0800
Li Wang <liwang@redhat.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 12:42 AM, Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@de.ibm.com
> > wrote:  
> 
> > In case a fork or a clone system fails in copy_process and the error
> > handling does the mmput() at the bad_fork_cleanup_mm label, the
> > following warning messages will appear on the console:
> >
> >   BUG: non-zero pgtables_bytes on freeing mm: 16384
> >
> > The reason for that is the tricks we play with mm_inc_nr_puds() and
> > mm_inc_nr_pmds() in init_new_context().
> >
> > A normal 64-bit process has 3 levels of page table, the p4d level and
> > the pud level are folded. On process termination the free_pud_range()
> > function in mm/memory.c will subtract 16KB from pgtable_bytes with a
> > mm_dec_nr_puds() call, but there actually is not really a pud table.
> >
> > One issue with this is the fact that pgtable_bytes is usually off
> > by a few kilobytes, but the more severe problem is that for a failed
> > fork or clone the free_pgtables() function is not called. In this case
> > there is no mm_dec_nr_puds() or mm_dec_nr_pmds() that go together with
> > the mm_inc_nr_puds() and mm_inc_nr_pmds in init_new_context().
> > The pgtable_bytes will be off by 16384 or 32768 bytes and we get the
> > BUG message. The message itself is purely cosmetic, but annoying.
> >
> > To fix this override the mm_pmd_folded, mm_pud_folded and mm_p4d_folded
> > function to check for the true size of the address space.
> >  
> 
> I can confirm that it works to the problem, the warning message is gone
> after applying this patch on s390x. And I also done ltp syscalls/cve test
> for the patch set on x86_64 arch, there has no new regression.
> 
> Tested-by: Li Wang <liwang@redhat.com>

Thanks for testing. Unfortunately Heiko reported another issue yesterday
with the patch applied. This time the other way around:

BUG: non-zero pgtables_bytes on freeing mm: -16384

I am trying to understand how this can happen. For now I would like to
keep the patch on hold in case they need another change.

-- 
blue skies,
   Martin.

"Reality continues to ruin my life." - Calvin.