[PATCH] mm: use correct VMA flags when freeing page-tables

Nadav Amit
2021-10-21T19:54:40Z

From: Nadav Amit <namit@vmware.com>

Consistent use of the mmu_gather interface requires a call to
tlb_start_vma() and tlb_end_vma() for each VMA. free_pgtables() does not
follow this pattern.

Certain architectures need tlb_start_vma() to be called in order for
tlb_update_vma_flags() to update the VMA flags (tlb->vma_exec and
tlb->vma_huge), which are later used for the proper TLB flush to be
issued. Since tlb_start_vma() is not called, this can lead to the wrong
VMA flags being used when the flush is performed.

Specifically, the munmap syscall would call unmap_region(), which unmaps
the VMAs and then frees the page-tables. A flush is needed after
the page-tables are removed to prevent page-walk caches from holding
stale entries, but this flush would use the flags of the VMA flags of
the last VMA that was flushed. This does not appear to be right.

Use tlb_start_vma() and tlb_end_vma() to prevent this from happening.
This might lead to unnecessary calls to flush_cache_range() on certain
arch's. If needed, a new flag can be added to mmu_gather to indicate
that the flush is not needed.

Cc: Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@redhat.com>
Cc: Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
Cc: Yu Zhao <yuzhao@google.com>
Cc: Nick Piggin <npiggin@gmail.com>
Cc: x86@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Nadav Amit <namit@vmware.com>
---
mm/memory.c | 4 ++++
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/mm/memory.c b/mm/memory.c
index 12a7b2094434..056fbfdd3c1f 100644
--- a/mm/memory.c
+++ b/mm/memory.c
@@ -412,6 +412,8 @@ void free_pgtables(struct mmu_gather *tlb, struct vm_area_struct *vma,
unlink_anon_vmas(vma);
unlink_file_vma(vma);

+ tlb_start_vma(tlb, vma);
+
if (is_vm_hugetlb_page(vma)) {
hugetlb_free_pgd_range(tlb, addr, vma->vm_end,
floor, next ? next->vm_start : ceiling);
@@ -429,6 +431,8 @@ void free_pgtables(struct mmu_gather *tlb, struct vm_area_struct *vma,
free_pgd_range(tlb, addr, vma->vm_end,
floor, next ? next->vm_start : ceiling);
}
+
+ tlb_end_vma(tlb, vma);
vma = next;
}
}
--
2.25.1