linux/mm
Linus Torvalds 17839856fd gup: document and work around "COW can break either way" issue
Doing a "get_user_pages()" on a copy-on-write page for reading can be
ambiguous: the page can be COW'ed at any time afterwards, and the
direction of a COW event isn't defined.

Yes, whoever writes to it will generally do the COW, but if the thread
that did the get_user_pages() unmapped the page before the write (and
that could happen due to memory pressure in addition to any outright
action), the writer could also just take over the old page instead.

End result: the get_user_pages() call might result in a page pointer
that is no longer associated with the original VM, and is associated
with - and controlled by - another VM having taken it over instead.

So when doing a get_user_pages() on a COW mapping, the only really safe
thing to do would be to break the COW when getting the page, even when
only getting it for reading.

At the same time, some users simply don't even care.

For example, the perf code wants to look up the page not because it
cares about the page, but because the code simply wants to look up the
physical address of the access for informational purposes, and doesn't
really care about races when a page might be unmapped and remapped
elsewhere.

This adds logic to force a COW event by setting FOLL_WRITE on any
copy-on-write mapping when FOLL_GET (or FOLL_PIN) is used to get a page
pointer as a result.

The current semantics end up being:

 - __get_user_pages_fast(): no change. If you don't ask for a write,
   you won't break COW. You'd better know what you're doing.

 - get_user_pages_fast(): the fast-case "look it up in the page tables
   without anything getting mmap_sem" now refuses to follow a read-only
   page, since it might need COW breaking.  Which happens in the slow
   path - the fast path doesn't know if the memory might be COW or not.

 - get_user_pages() (including the slow-path fallback for gup_fast()):
   for a COW mapping, turn on FOLL_WRITE for FOLL_GET/FOLL_PIN, with
   very similar semantics to FOLL_FORCE.

If it turns out that we want finer granularity (ie "only break COW when
it might actually matter" - things like the zero page are special and
don't need to be broken) we might need to push these semantics deeper
into the lookup fault path.  So if people care enough, it's possible
that we might end up adding a new internal FOLL_BREAK_COW flag to go
with the internal FOLL_COW flag we already have for tracking "I had a
COW".

Alternatively, if it turns out that different callers might want to
explicitly control the forced COW break behavior, we might even want to
make such a flag visible to the users of get_user_pages() instead of
using the above default semantics.

But for now, this is mostly commentary on the issue (this commit message
being a lot bigger than the patch, and that patch in turn is almost all
comments), with that minimal "enable COW breaking early" logic using the
existing FOLL_WRITE behavior.

[ It might be worth noting that we've always had this ambiguity, and it
  could arguably be seen as a user-space issue.

  You only get private COW mappings that could break either way in
  situations where user space is doing cooperative things (ie fork()
  before an execve() etc), but it _is_ surprising and very subtle, and
  fork() is supposed to give you independent address spaces.

  So let's treat this as a kernel issue and make the semantics of
  get_user_pages() easier to understand. Note that obviously a true
  shared mapping will still get a page that can change under us, so this
  does _not_ mean that get_user_pages() somehow returns any "stable"
  page ]

Reported-by: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Tested-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Acked-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Kirill Shutemov <kirill@shutemov.name>
Acked-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@redhat.com>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2020-06-02 10:19:17 -07:00
..
kasan kasan: disable branch tracing for core runtime 2020-05-23 10:26:31 -07:00
backing-dev.c bdi: add a ->dev_name field to struct backing_dev_info 2020-05-09 16:07:57 -06:00
balloon_compaction.c mm/balloon_compaction: suppress allocation warnings 2019-09-04 07:42:01 -04:00
cleancache.c Driver Core and debugfs changes for 5.3-rc1 2019-07-12 12:24:03 -07:00
cma_debug.c mm/cma_debug.c: use DEFINE_DEBUGFS_ATTRIBUTE to define debugfs fops 2019-12-01 12:59:09 -08:00
cma.c mm: cma: NUMA node interface 2020-04-10 15:36:21 -07:00
cma.h
compaction.c mm/swap: Use local_lock for protection 2020-05-28 10:31:10 +02:00
debug_page_ref.c
debug.c mm: dump_page(): additional diagnostics for huge pinned pages 2020-04-02 09:35:27 -07:00
dmapool.c mm/dmapool.c: micro-optimisation remove unnecessary branch 2020-04-07 10:43:42 -07:00
early_ioremap.c mm/early_ioremap.c: use %pa to print resource_size_t variables 2020-01-31 10:30:38 -08:00
fadvise.c fs: Export generic_fadvise() 2019-08-30 22:43:58 -07:00
failslab.c
filemap.c mm: huge tmpfs: try to split_huge_page() when punching hole 2020-04-07 10:43:41 -07:00
frame_vector.c mm: untag user pointers in get_vaddr_frames 2019-09-25 17:51:41 -07:00
frontswap.c
gup_benchmark.c mm/gup_benchmark: support pin_user_pages() and related calls 2020-04-02 09:35:27 -07:00
gup.c gup: document and work around "COW can break either way" issue 2020-06-02 10:19:17 -07:00
highmem.c mm, x86/mm: Untangle address space layout definitions from basic pgtable type definitions 2019-12-10 10:12:55 +01:00
hmm.c mm/hmm: return error for non-vma snapshots 2020-03-30 16:58:36 -03:00
huge_memory.c gup: document and work around "COW can break either way" issue 2020-06-02 10:19:17 -07:00
hugetlb_cgroup.c mm: use fallthrough; 2020-04-07 10:43:41 -07:00
hugetlb.c mm/hugetlb: fix a addressing exception caused by huge_pte_offset 2020-04-21 11:11:55 -07:00
hwpoison-inject.c mm/hwpoison-inject: use DEFINE_DEBUGFS_ATTRIBUTE to define debugfs fops 2019-12-01 12:59:09 -08:00
init-mm.c mm/init-mm.c: include <linux/mman.h> for vm_committed_as_batch 2019-10-19 06:32:32 -04:00
internal.h mm: add function __putback_isolated_page 2020-04-07 10:43:38 -07:00
interval_tree.c
Kconfig libnvdimm for 5.7 2020-04-08 21:03:40 -07:00
Kconfig.debug mm: add generic ptdump 2020-02-04 03:05:25 +00:00
khugepaged.c mm,thp: stop leaking unreleased file pages 2020-05-28 11:35:40 -07:00
kmemleak-test.c
kmemleak.c mm/kmemleak.c: use address-of operator on section symbols 2020-04-02 09:35:26 -07:00
ksm.c mm/ksm: fix NULL pointer dereference when KSM zero page is enabled 2020-04-21 11:11:55 -07:00
list_lru.c mm: use fallthrough; 2020-04-07 10:43:41 -07:00
maccess.c uaccess: Add strict non-pagefault kernel-space read function 2019-11-02 12:39:12 -07:00
madvise.c mm: check that mm is still valid in madvise() 2020-04-24 13:28:03 -07:00
Makefile mm: introduce Reported pages 2020-04-07 10:43:38 -07:00
mapping_dirty_helpers.c mm/mapping_dirty_helpers: update huge page-table entry callbacks 2020-04-02 09:35:29 -07:00
memblock.c mm: cma: NUMA node interface 2020-04-10 15:36:21 -07:00
memcontrol.c mm, memcg: fix error return value of mem_cgroup_css_alloc() 2020-05-07 19:27:20 -07:00
memfd.c mm: page cache: store only head pages in i_pages 2019-09-24 15:54:08 -07:00
memory_hotplug.c mm/memory_hotplug: add pgprot_t to mhp_params 2020-04-10 15:36:21 -07:00
memory-failure.c mm: code cleanup for MADV_FREE 2020-04-07 10:43:38 -07:00
memory.c mm/memory.c: add vm_insert_pages() 2020-04-10 15:36:21 -07:00
mempolicy.c libnvdimm for 5.7 2020-04-08 21:03:40 -07:00
mempool.c
memremap.c mm/memremap: set caching mode for PCI P2PDMA memory to WC 2020-04-10 15:36:21 -07:00
memtest.c
migrate.c userfaultfd: wp: support swap and page migration 2020-04-07 10:43:39 -07:00
mincore.c mm: pagewalk: add 'depth' parameter to pte_hole 2020-02-04 03:05:25 +00:00
mlock.c mm: untag user pointers passed to memory syscalls 2019-09-25 17:51:41 -07:00
mm_init.c mm/mm_init.c: clean code. Use BUILD_BUG_ON when comparing compile time constant 2020-04-07 10:43:41 -07:00
mmap.c mm/vma: introduce VM_ACCESS_FLAGS 2020-04-10 15:36:21 -07:00
mmu_context.c
mmu_gather.c asm-generic/tlb: provide MMU_GATHER_TABLE_FREE 2020-02-04 03:05:26 +00:00
mmu_notifier.c mm/mmu_notifier: silence PROVE_RCU_LIST warnings 2020-03-21 18:56:06 -07:00
mmzone.c
mprotect.c mm/vma: introduce VM_ACCESS_FLAGS 2020-04-10 15:36:21 -07:00
mremap.c userfaultfd: fix remap event with MREMAP_DONTUNMAP 2020-05-14 10:00:35 -07:00
msync.c mm: untag user pointers passed to memory syscalls 2019-09-25 17:51:41 -07:00
nommu.c x86/mm: split vmalloc_sync_all() 2020-03-21 18:56:06 -07:00
oom_kill.c mm, oom: dump stack of victim when reaping failed 2020-01-31 10:30:38 -08:00
page_alloc.c arm64 updates for 5.8 2020-06-01 15:18:27 -07:00
page_counter.c mm, memcg: prevent memory.min load/store tearing 2020-04-02 09:35:29 -07:00
page_ext.c mm/page_ext.c: drop pfn_present() check when onlining 2020-04-07 10:43:40 -07:00
page_idle.c
page_io.c fs: Enable bmap() function to properly return errors 2020-02-03 08:05:37 -05:00
page_isolation.c mm: add function __putback_isolated_page 2020-04-07 10:43:38 -07:00
page_owner.c mm/page_owner: don't access uninitialized memmaps when reading /proc/pagetypeinfo 2019-10-19 06:32:31 -04:00
page_poison.c mm/page_poison.c: fix a typo in a comment 2019-09-24 15:54:08 -07:00
page_reporting.c mm/page_reporting: add budget limit on how many pages can be reported per pass 2020-04-07 10:43:39 -07:00
page_reporting.h mm: introduce Reported pages 2020-04-07 10:43:38 -07:00
page_vma_mapped.c mm/page_vma_mapped.c: explicitly compare pfn for normal, hugetlbfs and THP page 2020-01-31 10:30:38 -08:00
page-writeback.c mm/gup/writeback: add callbacks for inaccessible pages 2020-04-02 09:35:27 -07:00
pagewalk.c x86: mm: avoid allocating struct mm_struct on the stack 2020-02-04 03:05:25 +00:00
percpu-internal.h
percpu-km.c
percpu-stats.c percpu: update copyright emails to dennis@kernel.org 2020-04-01 10:09:12 -07:00
percpu-vm.c
percpu.c percpu: make pcpu_alloc() aware of current gfp context 2020-05-07 19:27:21 -07:00
pgtable-generic.c asm-generic/mm: stub out p{4,u}d_clear_bad() if __PAGETABLE_P{4,U}D_FOLDED 2019-12-01 06:29:19 -08:00
process_vm_access.c mm: docs: Fix a comment in process_vm_rw_core 2020-03-25 10:04:01 -05:00
ptdump.c x86: mm: avoid allocating struct mm_struct on the stack 2020-02-04 03:05:25 +00:00
readahead.c
rmap.c mm: prevent a warning when casting void* -> enum 2020-04-07 10:43:41 -07:00
rodata_test.c
shmem.c mm: shmem: disable interrupt when acquiring info->lock in userfaultfd_copy path 2020-04-21 11:11:56 -07:00
shuffle.c mm: adjust shuffle code to allow for future coalescing 2020-04-07 10:43:38 -07:00
shuffle.h mm: adjust shuffle code to allow for future coalescing 2020-04-07 10:43:38 -07:00
slab_common.c mm, slab_common: fix a typo in comment "eariler"->"earlier" 2020-04-10 15:36:20 -07:00
slab.c mm, debug_pagealloc: don't rely on static keys too early 2020-01-13 18:19:02 -08:00
slab.h mm: kmem: rename (__)memcg_kmem_(un)charge_memcg() to __memcg_kmem_(un)charge() 2020-04-02 09:35:28 -07:00
slob.c mm, sl[aou]b: guarantee natural alignment for kmalloc(power-of-two) 2019-10-07 15:47:20 -07:00
slub.c mm/slub: fix incorrect interpretation of s->offset 2020-05-07 19:27:20 -07:00
sparse-vmemmap.c mm/sparsemem: convert kmalloc_section_memmap() to populate_section_memmap() 2019-07-18 17:08:07 -07:00
sparse.c mm/sparse.c: move subsection_map related functions together 2020-04-07 10:43:40 -07:00
swap_cgroup.c
swap_slots.c mm/swap_slots.c: assign|reset cache slot by value directly 2020-04-02 09:35:27 -07:00
swap_state.c mm/swap_state.c: use the same way to count page in [add_to|delete_from]_swap_cache 2020-04-02 09:35:28 -07:00
swap.c mm/swap: Use local_lock for protection 2020-05-28 10:31:10 +02:00
swapfile.c proc: faster open/read/close with "permanent" files 2020-04-07 10:43:42 -07:00
truncate.c mm/thp: allow dropping THP from page cache 2019-10-19 06:32:33 -04:00
usercopy.c usercopy: Avoid HIGHMEM pfn warning 2019-09-17 15:20:17 -07:00
userfaultfd.c userfaultfd: wp: support write protection for userfault vma range 2020-04-07 10:43:39 -07:00
util.c mm/mmap.c: rb_parent is not necessary in __vma_link_list() 2019-12-01 06:29:19 -08:00
vmacache.c
vmalloc.c vmalloc: fix remap_vmalloc_range() bounds checks 2020-04-21 11:11:56 -07:00
vmpressure.c mm: vmpressure: use mem_cgroup_is_root API 2020-04-02 09:35:31 -07:00
vmscan.c mm/vmscan: remove unnecessary argument description of isolate_lru_pages() 2020-05-07 19:27:21 -07:00
vmstat.c scs: Add page accounting for shadow call stack allocations 2020-05-15 16:35:49 +01:00
workingset.c mm: vmscan: detect file thrashing at the reclaim root 2019-12-01 12:59:07 -08:00
z3fold.c mm/z3fold: silence kmemleak false positives of slots 2020-05-28 11:35:40 -07:00
zbud.c
zpool.c zpool: add malloc_support_movable to zpool_driver 2019-09-24 15:54:12 -07:00
zsmalloc.c mm: use fallthrough; 2020-04-07 10:43:41 -07:00
zswap.c mm/zswap: allow setting default status, compressor and allocator in Kconfig 2020-04-07 10:43:41 -07:00