Re: [PATCH v3 5/6] mm/gup: migrate pinned pages out of movable zone

From: Jason Gunthorpe
Date: Fri Dec 11 2020 - 15:47:44 EST


On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 03:40:57PM -0500, Pavel Tatashin wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 3:23 PM Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 03:21:39PM -0500, Pavel Tatashin wrote:
> > > @@ -1593,7 +1592,7 @@ static long check_and_migrate_cma_pages(struct mm_struct *mm,
> > > }
> > >
> > > if (!isolate_lru_page(head)) {
> > > - list_add_tail(&head->lru, &cma_page_list);
> > > + list_add_tail(&head->lru, &movable_page_list);
> > > mod_node_page_state(page_pgdat(head),
> > > NR_ISOLATED_ANON +
> > > page_is_file_lru(head),
> > > @@ -1605,7 +1604,7 @@ static long check_and_migrate_cma_pages(struct mm_struct *mm,
> > > i += step;
> > > }
> > >
> > > - if (!list_empty(&cma_page_list)) {
> > > + if (!list_empty(&movable_page_list)) {
> >
> > You didn't answer my earlier question, is it OK that ZONE_MOVABLE
> > pages leak out here if ioslate_lru_page() fails but the
> > moval_page_list is empty?
> >
> > I think the answer is no, right?
> In my opinion it is OK. We are doing our best to not pin movable
> pages, but if isolate_lru_page() fails because pages are currently
> locked by someone else, we will end up long-term pinning them.
> See comment in this patch:
> + * 1. Pinned pages: (long-term) pinning of movable pages is avoided
> + * when pages are pinned and faulted, but it is still possible that
> + * address space already has pages in ZONE_MOVABLE at the time when
> + * pages are pinned (i.e. user has touches that memory before
> + * pinning). In such case we try to migrate them to a different zone,
> + * but if migration fails the pages can still end-up pinned in
> + * ZONE_MOVABLE. In such case, memory offlining might retry a long
> + * time and will only succeed once user application unpins pages.

It is not "retry a long time" it is "might never complete" because
userspace will hold the DMA pin indefinitely.

Confused what the point of all this is then ??

I thought to goal here is to make memory unplug reliable, if you leave
a hole like this then any hostile userspace can block it forever.

Jason