Re: Avoiding allocation of unused shmem page

Peter Xu
2022-10-21T16:02:14Z

On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 05:17:08PM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 21.10.22 17:08, Peter Xu wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 04:45:27PM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> > > On 21.10.22 16:28, Peter Xu wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 04:10:41PM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> > > > > On 21.10.22 16:01, Peter Xu wrote:
> > > > > > On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 09:23:00AM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> > > > > > > On 20.10.22 23:10, Peter Xu wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Thu, Oct 20, 2022 at 09:14:09PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > > > > > > > > In yesterday's call, David brought up the case where we fallocate a file
> > > > > > > > > in shmem, call mmap(MAP_PRIVATE) and then store to a page which is over
> > > > > > > > > a hole. That currently causes shmem to allocate a page, zero-fill it,
> > > > > > > > > then COW it, resulting in two pages being allocated when only the
> > > > > > > > > COW page really needs to be allocated.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > The path we currently take through the MM when we take the page fault
> > > > > > > > > looks like this (correct me if I'm wrong ...):
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > handle_mm_fault()
> > > > > > > > > __handle_mm_fault()
> > > > > > > > > handle_pte_fault()
> > > > > > > > > do_fault()
> > > > > > > > > do_cow_fault()
> > > > > > > > > __do_fault()
> > > > > > > > > vm_ops->fault()
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > ... which is where we come into shmem_fault(). Apart from the
> > > > > > > > > horrendous hole-punch handling case, shmem_fault() is quite simple:
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > err = shmem_get_folio_gfp(inode, vmf->pgoff, &folio, SGP_CACHE,
> > > > > > > > > gfp, vma, vmf, &ret);
> > > > > > > > > if (err)
> > > > > > > > > return vmf_error(err);
> > > > > > > > > vmf->page = folio_file_page(folio, vmf->pgoff);
> > > > > > > > > return ret;
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > What we could do here is detect this case. Something like:
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > enum sgp_type sgp = SGP_CACHE;
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > if ((vmf->flags & FAULT_FLAG_WRITE) && !(vma->vm_flags & VM_SHARED))
> > > > > > > > > sgp = SGP_READ;
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Yes this will start to save the space, but just to mention this may start
> > > > > > > > to break anything that will still depend on the pagecache to work. E.g.,
> > > > > > > > it'll change behavior if the vma is registered with uffd missing mode;
> > > > > > > > we'll start to lose MISSING events for these private mappings. Not sure
> > > > > > > > whether there're other side effects.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > I don't follow, can you elaborate?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > hugetlb doesn't perform this kind of unnecessary allocation and should be fine in regards to uffd. Why should it matter here and how exactly would a problematic sequence look like?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hugetlb is special because hugetlb detects pte first and relies on pte at
> > > > > > least for uffd. shmem is not.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Feel free to also reference the recent fix which relies on the stable
> > > > > > hugetlb pte with commit 2ea7ff1e39cbe375.
> > > > >
> > > > > Sorry to be dense here, but I don't follow how that relates.
> > > > >
> > > > > Assume we have a MAP_PRIVATE shmem mapping and someone registers uffd
> > > > > missing events on that mapping.
> > > > >
> > > > > Assume we get a page fault on a hole. We detect no page is mapped and check
> > > > > if the page cache has a page mapped -- which is also not the case, because
> > > > > there is a hole.
> > > > >
> > > > > So we notify uffd.
> > > > >
> > > > > Uffd will place a page. It should *not* touch the page cache and only insert
> > > > > that page into the page table -- otherwise we'd be violating MAP_PRIVATE
> > > > > semantics.
> > > >
> > > > That's actually exactly what we do right now... we insert into page cache
> > > > for the shmem. See shmem_mfill_atomic_pte().
> > > >
> > > > Why it violates MAP_PRIVATE? Private pages only guarantee the exclusive
> > > > ownership of pages, I don't see why it should restrict uffd behavior. Uffd
> > > > missing mode (afaiu) is defined to resolve page cache missings in this
> > > > case. Hugetlb is special but not shmem IMO comparing to most of the rest
> > > > of the file systems.
> > >
> > > If a write (or uffd placement) via a MAP_PRIVATE mapping results in other
> > > shared/private mappings from observing these modifications, you have a clear
> > > violation of MAP_PRIVATE semantics.
> >
> > I think I understand what you meant, but just to mention again that I think
> > it's a matter of how we defined the uffd missing semantics when shmem
> > missing mode was introduced years ago. It does not need to be the same
> > semantic as writting directly to a private mapping.
> >
>
> I think uffd does exactly the right thing in mfill_atomic_pte:
>
> /*
> * The normal page fault path for a shmem will invoke the
> * fault, fill the hole in the file and COW it right away. The
> * result generates plain anonymous memory. So when we are
> * asked to fill an hole in a MAP_PRIVATE shmem mapping, we'll
> * generate anonymous memory directly without actually filling
> * the hole. For the MAP_PRIVATE case the robustness check
> * only happens in the pagetable (to verify it's still none)
> * and not in the radix tree.
> */
> if (!(dst_vma->vm_flags & VM_SHARED)) {
> if (mode == MCOPY_ATOMIC_NORMAL)
> err = mcopy_atomic_pte(dst_mm, dst_pmd, dst_vma,
> dst_addr, src_addr, page,
> wp_copy);
> else
> err = mfill_zeropage_pte(dst_mm, dst_pmd,
> dst_vma, dst_addr);
> } else {
> err = shmem_mfill_atomic_pte(dst_mm, dst_pmd, dst_vma,
> dst_addr, src_addr,
> mode != MCOPY_ATOMIC_NORMAL,
> wp_copy, page);
> }
>
> Unless we have a writable shared mapping, we end up not touching the pagecache.
>
> After what I understand from your last message (maybe I understood it wrong),
> I tried exploiting uffd behavior by writing into a hole of a file without
> write permissions using uffd. I failed because it does the right thing ;)

Very interesting to learn this, thanks for the pointer, David. :)
Definitely helpful to me on knowing better on the vma security model.

Though note that it'll be a different topic if we go back to the original
problem we're discussing - the fake-read approach of shmem will still keep
the hole in file which will still change the behavior of missing messages
from generating.

Said that, I don't really know whether there can be a real impact on any
uffd users, or anything else that similarly access the file cache.

--
Peter Xu