Re: [PATCH 5/7] mm: free user PTE page table pages

From: "Mika Penttilä" <mika.penttila@nextfour.com>
To: Qi Zheng <zhengqi.arch@bytedance.com>,
	akpm@linux-foundation.org, tglx@linutronix.de,
	hannes@cmpxchg.org, mhocko@kernel.org, vdavydov.dev@gmail.com
Cc: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-mm@kvack.org, songmuchun@bytedance.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 5/7] mm: free user PTE page table pages
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2021 16:55:10 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <7fe2dd75-9b48-9685-8986-27a4cecc840f@nextfour.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <80b7d7fc-9d6d-0d1b-a333-b0ccd856e7c1@bytedance.com>

On 19.7.2021 15.56, Qi Zheng wrote:
> On 7/18/21 2:19 PM, Mika Penttilä wrote:
>
>>> +
>>> +/*
>>> + * returns true if the pmd has been populated with PTE page table,
>>> + * or false for all other cases.
>>> + */
>>> +bool pte_install_try_get(struct mm_struct *mm, pmd_t *pmd, 
>>> pgtable_t *pte)
>>> +{
>>> +    spinlock_t *ptl;
>>> +    bool retval = true;
>>> +
>>> +retry:
>>> +    ptl = pmd_lock(mm, pmd);
>>> +    if (likely(pmd_none(*pmd))) {
>>> +        __pte_install(mm, pmd, pte);
>>> +    } else if (pmd_leaf(*pmd) || !pmd_present(*pmd)) {
>>> +        retval = false;
>>> +    } else if (!pte_get_unless_zero(pmd)) {
>>> +        spin_unlock(ptl);
>>> +        goto retry;
>>> +    }
>>> +    spin_unlock(ptl);
>>> +    return retval;
>>> +}
>>> +
>>
>> Can pte_get_unless_zero() return true above? Can the pmd have been by 
>> populated by others? In that case the ref count is wrongly incremented.
>>
>
> Here we only have mmap_read_lock(mm), so the pmd can be populated with
> other PTE page table page after a page fault in a different thread B 
> of this mm. In this case, thread B already hold a pte_refcount of the 
> PTE page table page populated in the pmd, so pte_get_unless_zero() can
> return true above.
>

Yes but if thread B populates the page table page and pte, then we also 
increase the refcount with pte_get_unless_zero() , but dont decrease it 
when notice !pte_none().
And in the pte_none() case, the refcount is increased again, so double 
accounting. see finish_fault().

> Similarly, if THP is enabled, the pmd also can be populated with a THP 
> page, we can see more detail in comment in handle_pte_fault(). The
> pmd_leaf() above is to detect this situation.