Re: [PATCH v19 5/8] mm: introduce memfd_secret system call to create "secret" memory areas

[Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>]

On Fri, May 14, 2021 at 10:50:55AM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 13.05.21 20:47, Mike Rapoport wrote:
> > From: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com>
> > 
> > Removing of the pages from the direct map may cause its fragmentation
> > on architectures that use large pages to map the physical memory
> > which affects the system performance. However, the original Kconfig
> > text for CONFIG_DIRECT_GBPAGES said that gigabyte pages in the direct
> > map "... can improve the kernel's performance a tiny bit ..." (commit
> > 00d1c5e05736 ("x86: add gbpages switches")) and the recent report [1]
> > showed that "... although 1G mappings are a good default choice,
> > there is no compelling evidence that it must be the only choice".
> > Hence, it is sufficient to have secretmem disabled by default with
> > the ability of a system administrator to enable it at boot time.
> 
> Maybe add a link to the Intel performance evaluation.
 
" ... the recent report [1]" and the link below.
 
> > Pages in the secretmem regions are unevictable and unmovable to
> > avoid accidental exposure of the sensitive data via swap or during
> > page migration.
 
...

> > A page that was a part of the secret memory area is cleared when it
> > is freed to ensure the data is not exposed to the next user of that
> > page.
> 
> You could skip that with init_on_free (and eventually also with
> init_on_alloc) set to avoid double clearing.

Right, but for now I'd prefer to keep this explicit in the secretmem
implementation. We may add the check for init_on_free/init_on_alloc later
on.


> > [1]
> > https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/213b4567-46ce-f116-9cdf-bbd0c884eb3c@linux.intel.com/
> 

-- 
Sincerely yours,
Mike.