* [PATCH v3 1/2] mm/ksm: Fix incorrect KSM counter handling in mm_struct during fork
2025-09-23 18:46 [PATCH v3 0/2] mm/ksm: Fix incorrect accounting of KSM counters during fork Donet Tom
@ 2025-09-23 18:46 ` Donet Tom
2025-09-23 18:47 ` [PATCH v3 2/2] selftests/mm: Added fork inheritance test for ksm_merging_pages counter Donet Tom
1 sibling, 0 replies; 3+ messages in thread
From: Donet Tom @ 2025-09-23 18:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Andrew Morton, David Hildenbrand
Cc: Ritesh Harjani, Xu Xin, Chengming Zhou, Wei Yang,
Aboorva Devarajan, linux-mm, linux-kernel, Giorgi Tchankvetadze,
Donet Tom, stable
Currently, the KSM-related counters in `mm_struct`, such as
`ksm_merging_pages`, `ksm_rmap_items`, and `ksm_zero_pages`, are
inherited by the child process during fork. This results in inconsistent
accounting.
When a process uses KSM, identical pages are merged and an rmap item is
created for each merged page. The `ksm_merging_pages` and
`ksm_rmap_items` counters are updated accordingly. However, after a
fork, these counters are copied to the child while the corresponding
rmap items are not. As a result, when the child later triggers an
unmerge, there are no rmap items present in the child, so the counters
remain stale, leading to incorrect accounting.
A similar issue exists with `ksm_zero_pages`, which maintains both a
global counter and a per-process counter. During fork, the per-process
counter is inherited by the child, but the global counter is not
incremented. Since the child also references zero pages, the global
counter should be updated as well. Otherwise, during zero-page unmerge,
both the global and per-process counters are decremented, causing the
global counter to become inconsistent.
To fix this, ksm_merging_pages and ksm_rmap_items are reset to 0
during fork, and the global ksm_zero_pages counter is updated with the
per-process ksm_zero_pages value inherited by the child. This ensures
that KSM statistics remain accurate and reflect the activity of each
process correctly.
Fixes: 7609385337a4 ("ksm: count ksm merging pages for each process")
Fixes: cb4df4cae4f2 ("ksm: count allocated ksm rmap_items for each process")
Fixes: e2942062e01d ("ksm: count all zero pages placed by KSM")
cc: stable@vger.kernel.org # v6.6
Reviewed-by: Chengming Zhou <chengming.zhou@linux.dev>
Acked-by: David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Donet Tom <donettom@linux.ibm.com>
---
include/linux/ksm.h | 8 +++++++-
1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/include/linux/ksm.h b/include/linux/ksm.h
index 22e67ca7cba3..067538fc4d58 100644
--- a/include/linux/ksm.h
+++ b/include/linux/ksm.h
@@ -56,8 +56,14 @@ static inline long mm_ksm_zero_pages(struct mm_struct *mm)
static inline void ksm_fork(struct mm_struct *mm, struct mm_struct *oldmm)
{
/* Adding mm to ksm is best effort on fork. */
- if (mm_flags_test(MMF_VM_MERGEABLE, oldmm))
+ if (mm_flags_test(MMF_VM_MERGEABLE, oldmm)) {
+ long nr_ksm_zero_pages = atomic_long_read(&mm->ksm_zero_pages);
+
+ mm->ksm_merging_pages = 0;
+ mm->ksm_rmap_items = 0;
+ atomic_long_add(nr_ksm_zero_pages, &ksm_zero_pages);
__ksm_enter(mm);
+ }
}
static inline int ksm_execve(struct mm_struct *mm)
--
2.51.0
^ permalink raw reply related [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread* [PATCH v3 2/2] selftests/mm: Added fork inheritance test for ksm_merging_pages counter
2025-09-23 18:46 [PATCH v3 0/2] mm/ksm: Fix incorrect accounting of KSM counters during fork Donet Tom
2025-09-23 18:46 ` [PATCH v3 1/2] mm/ksm: Fix incorrect KSM counter handling in mm_struct " Donet Tom
@ 2025-09-23 18:47 ` Donet Tom
1 sibling, 0 replies; 3+ messages in thread
From: Donet Tom @ 2025-09-23 18:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Andrew Morton, David Hildenbrand
Cc: Ritesh Harjani, Xu Xin, Chengming Zhou, Wei Yang,
Aboorva Devarajan, linux-mm, linux-kernel, Giorgi Tchankvetadze,
Donet Tom
Added a new selftest to verify whether the `ksm_merging_pages` counter
in `mm_struct` is not inherited by a child process after fork. This helps
ensure correctness of KSM accounting across process creation.
Acked-by: David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Donet Tom <donettom@linux.ibm.com>
---
.../selftests/mm/ksm_functional_tests.c | 43 ++++++++++++++++++-
1 file changed, 42 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/ksm_functional_tests.c b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/ksm_functional_tests.c
index 712f43c87736..ac136f04b8d6 100644
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/ksm_functional_tests.c
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/ksm_functional_tests.c
@@ -602,6 +602,46 @@ static void test_prot_none(void)
munmap(map, size);
}
+static void test_fork_ksm_merging_page_count(void)
+{
+ const unsigned int size = 2 * MiB;
+ char *map;
+ pid_t child_pid;
+ int status;
+
+ ksft_print_msg("[RUN] %s\n", __func__);
+
+ map = mmap_and_merge_range(0xcf, size, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, KSM_MERGE_MADVISE);
+ if (map == MAP_FAILED)
+ return;
+
+ child_pid = fork();
+ if (!child_pid) {
+ init_global_file_handles();
+ exit(ksm_get_self_merging_pages());
+ } else if (child_pid < 0) {
+ ksft_test_result_fail("fork() failed\n");
+ goto unmap;
+ }
+
+ if (waitpid(child_pid, &status, 0) < 0) {
+ ksft_test_result_fail("waitpid() failed\n");
+ goto unmap;
+ }
+
+ status = WEXITSTATUS(status);
+ if (status) {
+ ksft_test_result_fail("ksm_merging_page in child: %d\n", status);
+ goto unmap;
+ }
+
+ ksft_test_result_pass("ksm_merging_pages is not inherited after fork\n");
+
+unmap:
+ ksm_stop();
+ munmap(map, size);
+}
+
static void init_global_file_handles(void)
{
mem_fd = open("/proc/self/mem", O_RDWR);
@@ -620,7 +660,7 @@ static void init_global_file_handles(void)
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
- unsigned int tests = 8;
+ unsigned int tests = 9;
int err;
if (argc > 1 && !strcmp(argv[1], FORK_EXEC_CHILD_PRG_NAME)) {
@@ -652,6 +692,7 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv)
test_prctl_fork();
test_prctl_fork_exec();
test_prctl_unmerge();
+ test_fork_ksm_merging_page_count();
err = ksft_get_fail_cnt();
if (err)
--
2.51.0
^ permalink raw reply related [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread