Re: [PATCH 01/49] mm/sparse: fix vmemmap accounting imbalance on memory hotplug error

Mike Rapoport
2026-04-13T09:19:53Z

On Sun, Apr 05, 2026 at 08:51:52PM +0800, Muchun Song wrote:
> In section_activate(), if populate_section_memmap() fails, the error
> handling path calls section_deactivate() to roll back the state. This
> approach introduces an accounting imbalance.
>
> Since the commit c3576889d87b ("mm: fix accounting of memmap pages"),
> memmap pages are accounted for only after populate_section_memmap()
> succeeds. However, section_deactivate() unconditionally decrements the
> vmemmap account. Consequently, a failure in populate_section_memmap()
> leads to a negative offset (underflow) in the system's vmemmap tracking.
>
> We can fix this by ensuring that the vmemmap accounting is incremented
> immediately before checking for the success of populate_section_memmap().
> If populate_section_memmap() fails, the subsequent call to
> section_deactivate() will decrement the accounting, perfectly offsetting
> the increment and maintaining balance.
>
> Fixes: c3576889d87b ("mm: fix accounting of memmap pages")
> Signed-off-by: Muchun Song <songmuchun@bytedance.com>
> ---
> mm/sparse-vmemmap.c | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c b/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c
> index 6eadb9d116e4..ee27d0c0efe2 100644
> --- a/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c
> +++ b/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c
> @@ -822,11 +822,11 @@ static struct page * __meminit section_activate(int nid, unsigned long pfn,
> return pfn_to_page(pfn);
>
> memmap = populate_section_memmap(pfn, nr_pages, nid, altmap, pgmap);
> + memmap_pages_add(DIV_ROUND_UP(nr_pages * sizeof(struct page), PAGE_SIZE));

This logically belongs to success path in populate_section_memmap(). If we
update the counter there, we won't need to temporarily increase it at all.

> if (!memmap) {
> section_deactivate(pfn, nr_pages, altmap);
> return ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM);
> }
> - memmap_pages_add(DIV_ROUND_UP(nr_pages * sizeof(struct page), PAGE_SIZE));
>
> return memmap;
> }
> --
> 2.20.1
>

--
Sincerely yours,
Mike.