Re: [PATCH v3 05/40] mm/vma: ensure mmap_prepare doesn't set actions on a mergeable vma

["Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)" <ljs@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2026 at 02:00:18PM -0400, Gregory Price wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 17, 2026 at 05:22:14PM +0100, Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) wrote:
> > When a user requests an mmap_action be performed in mmap_prepare, this
> > involves populating the VMA range with data.
> >
> > However, if the VMA is mergeable, it might then mistakenly be merged with
> > another VMA without having populated the range.
> >
> > Every mmap action currently available sets VMA flags such that the VMA
> > cannot be merged.
> >
> > However, to ensure that no future mmap action falls foul of this, assert
> > that this is the case upon mmap_prepare validation.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) <ljs@kernel.org>
> > ---
> >  mm/vma.c | 9 +++++++++
> >  1 file changed, 9 insertions(+)
> >
> > diff --git a/mm/vma.c b/mm/vma.c
> > index d6ed10cefc8f..62f2ce1ad5a1 100644
> > --- a/mm/vma.c
> > +++ b/mm/vma.c
> > @@ -2809,6 +2809,15 @@ static int mmap_validate(unsigned long prev_start, unsigned long prev_end,
> >  int mmap_prepare_validate(const struct vm_area_desc *prev_desc,
> >  			  const struct vm_area_desc *desc)
> >  {
> > +	/*
> > +	 * It is not valid to execute mmap actions for VMAs which can be merged,
> > +	 * as any such merge would leave portions of the mapping incorrectly
> > +	 * unmapped.
> > +	 */
> > +	if (vma_flags_can_merge(&desc->vma_flags) &&
> > +	    WARN_ON_ONCE(desc->action.type != MMAP_NOTHING))
> > +		return -EINVAL;
> > +
>
> If you wanted to make this unit-testable, you could pull it out into a
> separate function:
>
> static bool mmap_action_is_valid(const struct vm_area_desc *desc)
> {
> 	return desc->action.type == MMAP_NOTHING ||
> 		!vma_flags_can_merge(&desc->vma_flags);
> }
>
> then write:
>
> if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!mmap_action_is_valid(desc)))
> 	return -EINVAL;
>
> And you can write a unit test directly against mmap_action_is_valid

You mean to isolate this check specifically?

All of the functions in vma.c are unit-testable in the userland VMA tests,
obviously here you'd be testing further stuff but you could certainly assert a
mergeable VMA specifying an action should result in an error there.

I'm also keen not to proliferate two many 'kinds' of validation.

As mmap_validate() checks pretty much everything BUT the action check, and it
has to work across mmap_prepare and mmap hooks.

So the idea here is we put the mmap_prepare-specific stuff in
mmap_prepare_validate() and the shared stuff in mmap_validate().

And already the stuff that can be validated just against flags lives in
mmap_validate_vma_flags() so that is itself separated out nicely.

>
> otherwise
>
> Reviewed-by: Gregory Price (Meta) <gourry@gourry.net>

Thanks!

--
Cheers, Lorenzo