[RFC PATCH v1 2/4] mm/gup: Use ptep_get_lockless_norecency()

From: Ryan Roberts
Date: Thu Feb 15 2024 - 07:18:51 EST


Gup needs to read ptes locklessly, so it uses ptep_get_lockless().
However, the returned access and dirty bits are unimportant so let's
switch over to ptep_get_lockless_norecency().

The wrinkle is that gup needs to check that the pte hasn't changed once
it has pinned the folio following this model:

pte = ptep_get_lockless_norecency(ptep)
...
if (!pte_same(pte, ptep_get_lockless(ptep)))
// RACE!
...

And now that pte may not contain correct access and dirty information,
the pte_same() comparison could spuriously fail. So let's introduce a
new pte_same_norecency() helper which will ignore the access and dirty
bits when doing the comparison.

Note that previously, ptep_get() was being used for the comparison; this
is technically incorrect because the PTL is not held. I've also
converted the comparison to use the preferred pmd_same() helper instead
of doing a raw value comparison.

As a side-effect, this new approach removes the possibility of
concurrent read/write to the page causing a spurious fast gup failure,
because the access and dirty bits are no longer used in the comparison.

Signed-off-by: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@xxxxxxx>
---
include/linux/pgtable.h | 18 ++++++++++++++++++
mm/gup.c | 7 ++++---
2 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/pgtable.h b/include/linux/pgtable.h
index 9dd40fdbd825..8123affa8baf 100644
--- a/include/linux/pgtable.h
+++ b/include/linux/pgtable.h
@@ -936,6 +936,24 @@ static inline int pte_same(pte_t pte_a, pte_t pte_b)
}
#endif

+/**
+ * pte_same_norecency - Compare pte_a and pte_b, ignoring young and dirty bits,
+ * if the ptes are present.
+ *
+ * @pte_a: First pte to compare.
+ * @pte_b: Second pte to compare.
+ *
+ * Returns 1 if the ptes match, else 0.
+ */
+static inline int pte_same_norecency(pte_t pte_a, pte_t pte_b)
+{
+ if (pte_present(pte_a))
+ pte_a = pte_mkold(pte_mkclean(pte_a));
+ if (pte_present(pte_b))
+ pte_b = pte_mkold(pte_mkclean(pte_b));
+ return pte_same(pte_a, pte_b);
+}
+
#ifndef __HAVE_ARCH_PTE_UNUSED
/*
* Some architectures provide facilities to virtualization guests
diff --git a/mm/gup.c b/mm/gup.c
index df83182ec72d..0f96d0a5ec09 100644
--- a/mm/gup.c
+++ b/mm/gup.c
@@ -2576,7 +2576,7 @@ static int gup_pte_range(pmd_t pmd, pmd_t *pmdp, unsigned long addr,
if (!ptep)
return 0;
do {
- pte_t pte = ptep_get_lockless(ptep);
+ pte_t pte = ptep_get_lockless_norecency(ptep);
struct page *page;
struct folio *folio;

@@ -2617,8 +2617,9 @@ static int gup_pte_range(pmd_t pmd, pmd_t *pmdp, unsigned long addr,
goto pte_unmap;
}

- if (unlikely(pmd_val(pmd) != pmd_val(*pmdp)) ||
- unlikely(pte_val(pte) != pte_val(ptep_get(ptep)))) {
+ if (unlikely(!pmd_same(pmd, *pmdp)) ||
+ unlikely(!pte_same_norecency(pte,
+ ptep_get_lockless_norecency(ptep)))) {
gup_put_folio(folio, 1, flags);
goto pte_unmap;
}
--
2.25.1