[RFC][PATCH] vm_operation to avoid pagefault/inval race

From: Paul E. McKenney (paulmck@us.ibm.com)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 15:53:26 EST


This patch adds a vm_operations_struct function pointer that allows
networked and distributed filesystems to avoid a race between a
pagefault on an mmap and an invalidation request from some other
node. The race goes as follows:

1. A user process on node A accesses a portion of a mapped
        file, resulting in a page fault. The pagefault handler
        invokes the corresponding nopage function, which reads
        the page into memory.

2. A user process on node B writes to the same portion of
        the file (either via mmap or write()), therefore sending
        node A an invalidation request to node A.

3. Node A receives this invalidate request, and dutifully
        invalidates all mmaps. Except for the one that has
        not yet been fully mapped by step 1.

4. Node A then executes the rest of do_no_page(), entering
        the now-invalid page into the PTEs.

5. One way or another, life is now hard.

One solution would be for the distributed filesystem to hold
onto a lock or semaphore upon return from the nopage function.
The problem is that there is no way to determine (in a timely
fashion) when it safe to release this lock or semaphore.

The attached patch addresses this by adding a nopagedone
function for when do_no_page() exits. The filesystem may then
drop the lock or semaphore in this nopagedone function.

Thoughts? Is there some other existing way to get this done?

                                        Thanx, Paul

diff -urN -X dontdiff linux-2.5.69/include/linux/mm.h linux-2.5.69.stmmap/include/linux/mm.h
--- linux-2.5.69/include/linux/mm.h Sun May 4 16:53:00 2003
+++ linux-2.5.69.stmmap/include/linux/mm.h Fri May 9 09:30:37 2003
@@ -134,6 +134,7 @@
         void (*open)(struct vm_area_struct * area);
         void (*close)(struct vm_area_struct * area);
         struct page * (*nopage)(struct vm_area_struct * area, unsigned long address, int unused);
+ void (*nopagedone)(struct vm_area_struct * area, unsigned long address, int status);
         int (*populate)(struct vm_area_struct * area, unsigned long address, unsigned long len, pgprot_t prot, unsigned long pgoff, int nonblock);
 };
 
diff -urN -X dontdiff linux-2.5.69/mm/memory.c linux-2.5.69.stmmap/mm/memory.c
--- linux-2.5.69/mm/memory.c Sun May 4 16:53:14 2003
+++ linux-2.5.69.stmmap/mm/memory.c Fri May 9 17:04:09 2003
@@ -1426,6 +1487,9 @@
         ret = VM_FAULT_OOM;
 out:
         pte_chain_free(pte_chain);
+ if (vma->vm_ops && vma->vm_ops->nopagedone) {
+ vma->vm_ops->nopagedone(vma, address & PAGE_MASK, ret);
+ }
         return ret;
 }
 
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 15 2003 - 22:00:48 EST