Re: [PATCH v11 2/8] iov_iter: Add a function to extract a page list from an iterator

[John Hubbard <jhubbard@nvidia.com>]

On 1/26/23 14:36, Al Viro wrote:
...
>>> +static inline bool iov_iter_extract_will_pin(const struct iov_iter *iter)
>>> +{
>>> +	return user_backed_iter(iter);
>>> +}
>>> +
>>
>> Wait a sec; why would we want a pin for pages we won't be modifying?
>> A reference - sure, but...
> 
> After having looked through the earlier iterations of the patchset -
> sorry, but that won't fly for (at least) vmsplice().  There we can't
> pin those suckers; thankfully, we don't need to - they are used only
> for fetches, so FOLL_GET is sufficient.  With your "we'll just pin them,
> source or destination" you won't be able to convert at least that
> call of iov_iter_get_pages2().  And there might be other similar cases;
> I won't swear there's more, but ISTR running into more than one of
> the "pin won't be OK here, but fortunately it's a data source" places.

Assuming that "page is a data source" means that we are writing out from
the page to a block device (so, a WRITE operation, which of course
actually *reads* from the page), then...

...one thing I'm worried about now is whether Jan's original problem
report [1] can be fixed, because that involves page writeback. And it
seems like we need to mark the pages involved as "maybe dma-pinned" via
FOLL_PIN pins, in order to solve it.

Or am I missing a key point (I hope)?


[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20180103100430.GE4911@quack2.suse.cz/T/#u

thanks,
-- 
John Hubbard
NVIDIA