Re: [PATCH 2/2] mm: zswap: remove unnecessary tree cleanups in zswap_swapoff()

[Nhat Pham]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 7:55 AM Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 7:38 AM Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 22, 2024 at 12:39:16PM -0800, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jan 22, 2024 at 12:19 PM Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 02:40:07AM +0000, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> > > > > During swapoff, try_to_unuse() makes sure that zswap_invalidate() is
> > > > > called for all swap entries before zswap_swapoff() is called. This means
> > > > > that all zswap entries should already be removed from the tree. Simplify
> > > > > zswap_swapoff() by removing the tree cleanup loop, and leaving an
> > > > > assertion in its place.
> > > > >
> > > > > Signed-off-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > > >
> > > > Acked-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > >
> > > > That's a great simplification.
> > > >
> > > > Removing the tree->lock made me double take, but at this point the
> > > > swapfile and its cache should be fully dead and I don't see how any of
> > > > the zswap operations that take tree->lock could race at this point.
> > >
> > > It took me a while staring at the code to realize this loop is pointless.
> > >
> > > However, while I have your attention on the swapoff path, there's a
> > > slightly irrelevant problem that I think might be there, but I am not
> > > sure.
> > >
> > > It looks to me like swapoff can race with writeback, and there may be
> > > a chance of UAF for the zswap tree. For example, if zswap_swapoff()
> > > races with shrink_memcg_cb(), I feel like we may free the tree as it
> > > is being used. For example if zswap_swapoff()->kfree(tree) happen
> > > right before shrink_memcg_cb()->list_lru_isolate(l, item).
> > >
> > > Please tell me that I am being paranoid and that there is some
> > > protection against zswap writeback racing with swapoff. It feels like
> > > we are very careful with zswap entries refcounting, but not with the
> > > zswap tree itself.
> >
> > Hm, I don't see how.
> >
> > Writeback operates on entries from the LRU. By the time
> > zswap_swapoff() is called, try_to_unuse() -> zswap_invalidate() should
> > will have emptied out the LRU and tree.
> >
> > Writeback could have gotten a refcount to the entry and dropped the
> > tree->lock. But then it does __read_swap_cache_async(), and while
> > holding the page lock checks the tree under lock once more; if that
> > finds the entry valid, it means try_to_unuse() hasn't started on this
> > page yet, and would be held up by the page lock/writeback state.
>
> Consider the following race:
>
> CPU 1                                 CPU 2
> # In shrink_memcg_cb()     # In swap_off
> list_lru_isolate()
>                                             zswap_invalidate()
>                                             ..
>                                             zswap_swapoff() -> kfree(tree)
> spin_lock(&tree->lock);
>
> Isn't this a UAF or am I missing something here?

I need to read this code closer. But this smells like a race to me as well.

Long term speaking, I think decoupling swap and zswap will fix this,
no? We won't need to kfree(tree) inside swapoff. IOW, if we have a
single zswap tree that is not tied down to any swapfile, then we can't
have this race. There might be other races introduced by the
decoupling that I might have not foreseen tho :)

Short term, no clue hmm. Let me think a bit more about this.


>
> >
> > > > > Chengming, Chris, I think this should make the tree split and the xarray
> > > > > conversion patches simpler (especially the former). If others agree,
> > > > > both changes can be rebased on top of this.
> > > >
> > > > The resulting code is definitely simpler, but this patch is not a
> > > > completely trivial cleanup, either. If you put it before Chengming's
> > > > patch and it breaks something, it would be difficult to pull out
> > > > without affecting the tree split.
> > >
> > > Are you suggesting I rebase this on top of Chengming's patches? I can
> > > definitely do this, but the patch will be slightly less
> > > straightforward, and if the tree split patches break something it
> > > would be difficult to pull out as well. If you feel like this patch is
> > > more likely to break things, I can rebase.
> >
> > Yeah I think it's more subtle. I'd only ask somebody to rebase an
> > already tested patch on a newer one if the latter were an obvious,
> > low-risk, prep-style patch. Your patch is good, but it doesn't quite
> > fit into this particular category, so I'd say no jumping the queue ;)
>
> My intention was to reduce the diff in both this patch and the tree
> split patches, but I do understand this is more subtle. I can rebase
> on top of Chengming's patches instead.