Re: [PATCH RFC 0/2] mm/page_alloc: free_pcppages_bulk safeguard

[Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>]

On Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 10:48:42AM -0700, Chris Li wrote:
> Hi Mel,
> 
> Adding Alexei to the discussion.
> 
> On Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Mel Gorman <mgorman@techsingularity.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Aug 17, 2023 at 11:05:22PM -0700, Chris Li wrote:
> > > In this patch series I want to safeguard
> > > the free_pcppage_bulk against change in the
> > > pcp->count outside of this function. e.g.
> > > by BPF program inject on the function tracepoint.
> > >
> > > I break up the patches into two seperate patches
> > > for the safeguard and clean up.
> > >
> > > Hopefully that is easier to review.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Chris Li <chrisl@kernel.org>
> >
> > This sounds like a maintenance nightmare if internal state can be arbitrary
> > modified by a BPF program and still expected to work properly in all cases.
> > Every review would have to take into account "what if a BPF script modifies
> > state behind our back?"
> 
> Thanks for the feedback.
> 
> I agree that it is hard to support if we allow BPF to change any internal
> stage as a rule.  That is why it is a RFC. Would you consider it case
> by case basis?
> The kernel panic is bad, the first patch is actually very small. I can
> also change it
> to generate warnings if we detect the inconsistent state.

We wouldn't allow C code that hooks spinlocks (eg lockdep) to allocate
memory.  I don't understand why BPF code should allocate memory either.