Re: [PATCH v3 1/3] mm: memfd/hugetlb: introduce memfd-based userspace MFR policy

[Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com>]

On 2026/3/9 12:53, Jiaqi Yan wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2026 at 11:30 PM Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 2026/2/13 13:01, Jiaqi Yan wrote:
>>> On Mon, Feb 9, 2026 at 11:31 PM Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 2026/2/10 12:47, Jiaqi Yan wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, Feb 9, 2026 at 3:54 AM Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2026/2/4 3:23, Jiaqi Yan wrote:
>>>>>>> Sometimes immediately hard offlining a large chunk of contigous memory
>>>>>>> having uncorrected memory errors (UE) may not be the best option.
>>>>>>> Cloud providers usually serve capacity- and performance-critical guest
>>>>>>> memory with 1G HugeTLB hugepages, as this significantly reduces the
>>>>>>> overhead associated with managing page tables and TLB misses. However,
>>>>>>> for today's HugeTLB system, once a byte of memory in a hugepage is
>>>>>>> hardware corrupted, the kernel discards the whole hugepage, including
>>>>>>> the healthy portion. Customer workload running in the VM can hardly
>>>>>>> recover from such a great loss of memory.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for your patch. Some questions below.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Therefore keeping or discarding a large chunk of contiguous memory
>>>>>>> owned by userspace (particularly to serve guest memory) due to
>>>>>>> recoverable UE may better be controlled by userspace process
>>>>>>> that owns the memory, e.g. VMM in the Cloud environment.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Introduce a memfd-based userspace memory failure (MFR) policy,
>>>>>>> MFD_MF_KEEP_UE_MAPPED. It is possible to support for other memfd,
>>>>>>> but the current implementation only covers HugeTLB.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For a hugepage associated with MFD_MF_KEEP_UE_MAPPED enabled memfd,
>>>>>>> whenever it runs into a new UE,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * MFR defers hard offline operations, i.e., unmapping and
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So the folio can't be unpoisoned until hugetlb folio becomes free?
>>>>>
>>>>> Are you asking from testing perspective, are we still able to clean up
>>>>> injected test errors via unpoison_memory() with MFD_MF_KEEP_UE_MAPPED?
>>>>>
>>>>> If so, unpoison_memory() can't turn the HWPoison hugetlb page to
>>>>> normal hugetlb page as MFD_MF_KEEP_UE_MAPPED automatically dissolves
>>>>
>>>> We might loss some testability but that should be an acceptable compromise.
>>>
>>> To clarify, looking at unpoison_memory(), it seems unpoison should
>>> still work if called before truncated or memfd closed.
>>>
>>> What I wanted to say is, for my test hugetlb-mfr.c, since I really
>>> want to test the cleanup code (dissolving free hugepage having
>>> multiple errors) after truncation or memfd closed, so we can only
>>> unpoison the raw pages rejected by buddy allocator.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> it. unpoison_memory(pfn) can probably still turn the HWPoison raw page
>>>>> back to a normal one, but you already lost the hugetlb page.
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>   dissolving. MFR still sets HWPoison flag, holds a refcount
>>>>>>>   for every raw HWPoison page, record them in a list, sends SIGBUS
>>>>>>>   to the consuming thread, but si_addr_lsb is reduced to PAGE_SHIFT.
>>>>>>>   If userspace is able to handle the SIGBUS, the HWPoison hugepage
>>>>>>>   remains accessible via the mapping created with that memfd.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * If the memory was not faulted in yet, the fault handler also
>>>>>>>   allows fault in the HWPoison folio.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For a MFD_MF_KEEP_UE_MAPPED enabled memfd, when it is closed, or
>>>>>>> when userspace process truncates its hugepages:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * When the HugeTLB in-memory file system removes the filemap's
>>>>>>>   folios one by one, it asks MFR to deal with HWPoison folios
>>>>>>>   on the fly, implemented by filemap_offline_hwpoison_folio().
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * MFR drops the refcounts being held for the raw HWPoison
>>>>>>>   pages within the folio. Now that the HWPoison folio becomes
>>>>>>>   free, MFR dissolves it into a set of raw pages. The healthy pages
>>>>>>>   are recycled into buddy allocator, while the HWPoison ones are
>>>>>>>   prevented from re-allocation.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> +static void filemap_offline_hwpoison_folio_hugetlb(struct folio *folio)
>>>>>>> +{
>>>>>>> +     int ret;
>>>>>>> +     struct llist_node *head;
>>>>>>> +     struct raw_hwp_page *curr, *next;
>>>>>>> +
>>>>>>> +     /*
>>>>>>> +      * Since folio is still in the folio_batch, drop the refcount
>>>>>>> +      * elevated by filemap_get_folios.
>>>>>>> +      */
>>>>>>> +     folio_put_refs(folio, 1);
>>>>>>> +     head = llist_del_all(raw_hwp_list_head(folio));
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We might race with get_huge_page_for_hwpoison()? llist_add() might be called
>>>>>> by folio_set_hugetlb_hwpoison() just after llist_del_all()?
>>>>>
>>>>> Oh, when there is a new UE while we releasing the folio here, right?
>>>>
>>>> Right.
>>>>
>>>>> In that case, would mutex_lock(&mf_mutex) eliminate potential race?
>>>>
>>>> IMO spin_lock_irq(&hugetlb_lock) might be better.
>>>
>>> Looks like I don't need any lock given the correction below.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> +
>>>>>>> +     /*
>>>>>>> +      * Release refcounts held by try_memory_failure_hugetlb, one per
>>>>>>> +      * HWPoison-ed page in the raw hwp list.
>>>>>>> +      *
>>>>>>> +      * Set HWPoison flag on each page so that free_has_hwpoisoned()
>>>>>>> +      * can exclude them during dissolve_free_hugetlb_folio().
>>>>>>> +      */
>>>>>>> +     llist_for_each_entry_safe(curr, next, head, node) {
>>>>>>> +             folio_put(folio);
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The hugetlb folio refcnt will only be increased once even if it contains multiple UE sub-pages.
>>>>>> See __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison() for details. So folio_put() might be called more times than
>>>>>> folio_try_get() in __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison().
>>>>>
>>>>> The changes in folio_set_hugetlb_hwpoison() should make
>>>>> __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison() not to take the "out" path which
>>>>> decrease the increased refcount for folio. IOW, every time a new UE
>>>>> happens, we handle the hugetlb page as if it is an in-use hugetlb
>>>>> page.
>>>>
>>>> See below code snippet (comment [1] and [2]):
>>>>
>>>> int __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison(unsigned long pfn, int flags,
>>>>                                  bool *migratable_cleared)
>>>> {
>>>>         struct page *page = pfn_to_page(pfn);
>>>>         struct folio *folio = page_folio(page);
>>>>         int ret = 2;    /* fallback to normal page handling */
>>>>         bool count_increased = false;
>>>>
>>>>         if (!folio_test_hugetlb(folio))
>>>>                 goto out;
>>>>
>>>>         if (flags & MF_COUNT_INCREASED) {
>>>>                 ret = 1;
>>>>                 count_increased = true;
>>>>         } else if (folio_test_hugetlb_freed(folio)) {
>>>>                 ret = 0;
>>>>         } else if (folio_test_hugetlb_migratable(folio)) {
>>>>
>>>>                    ^^^^*hugetlb_migratable is checked before trying to get folio refcnt* [1]
>>>>
>>>>                 ret = folio_try_get(folio);
>>>>                 if (ret)
>>>>                         count_increased = true;
>>>>         } else {
>>>>                 ret = -EBUSY;
>>>>                 if (!(flags & MF_NO_RETRY))
>>>>                         goto out;
>>>>         }
>>>>
>>>>         if (folio_set_hugetlb_hwpoison(folio, page)) {
>>>>                 ret = -EHWPOISON;
>>>>                 goto out;
>>>>         }
>>>>
>>>>         /*
>>>>          * Clearing hugetlb_migratable for hwpoisoned hugepages to prevent them
>>>>          * from being migrated by memory hotremove.
>>>>          */
>>>>         if (count_increased && folio_test_hugetlb_migratable(folio)) {
>>>>                 folio_clear_hugetlb_migratable(folio);
>>>>
>>>>                 ^^^^^*hugetlb_migratable is cleared when first time seeing folio* [2]
>>>>
>>>>                 *migratable_cleared = true;
>>>>         }
>>>>
>>>> Or am I miss something?
>>>
>>> Thanks for your explaination! You are absolutely right. It turns out
>>> the extra refcount I saw (during running hugetlb-mfr.c) on the folio
>>> at the moment of filemap_offline_hwpoison_folio_hugetlb() is actually
>>> because of the MF_COUNT_INCREASED during MADV_HWPOISON. In the past I
>>> used to think that is the effect of folio_try_get() in
>>> __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison(), and it is wrong. Now I see two cases:
>>> - MADV_HWPOISON: instead of __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison(),
>>> madvise_inject_error() is the one that increments hugepage refcount
>>> for every error injected. Different from other cases,
>>> MFD_MF_KEEP_UE_MAPPED makes the hugepage still a in-use page after
>>> memory_failure(MF_COUNT_INCREASED), so I think madvise_inject_error()
>>> should decrement in MFD_MF_KEEP_UE_MAPPED case.
>>> - In the real world: as you pointed out, MF always just increments
>>> hugepage refcount once in __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison(), even if it
>>> runs into multiple errors. When
>>
>> This might not always hold true. When MF occurs while hugetlb folio is under isolation(hugetlb_migratable is
>> cleared and extra folio refcnt is held by isolating code in that case), __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison won't get
>> extra folio refcnt.
>>
>>> filemap_offline_hwpoison_folio_hugetlb() drops the refcount elevated
>>> by filemap_get_folios(), it only needs to decrement again if
>>> folio_ref_dec_and_test() returns false. I tested something like below:
>>>
>>>     /* drop the refcount elevated by filemap_get_folios. */
>>>     folio_put(folio);
>>>     if (folio_ref_count(folio))
>>>         folio_put(folio);
>>>     /* now refcount should be zero. */
>>>     ret = dissolve_free_hugetlb_folio(folio);
>>
>> So I think above code might drop the folio refcnt held by isolating code.
> 
> Hi Miaohe, thanks for raising the concern. Given two things below
> - both folio_isolate_hugetlb() and get_huge_page_for_hwpoison() are
> guarded by hugetlb_lock.
> - hugetlb_update_hwpoison() only folio_test_set_hwpoison() for
> non-isolated folio after folio_try_get() succeeds.
> 
> as long as folio_test_set_hwpoison() is true here, this refcount
> should never come from folio_isolate_hugetlb(). What do you think?
> 

Let's think about below scenario. When __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison() encounters an
isolated hugetlb folio:

int __get_huge_page_for_hwpoison(unsigned long pfn, int flags,
				 bool *migratable_cleared)
{
	struct page *page = pfn_to_page(pfn);
	struct folio *folio = page_folio(page);
	bool count_increased = false;
	int ret, rc;

	if (!folio_test_hugetlb(folio)) {
		ret = MF_HUGETLB_NON_HUGEPAGE;
		goto out;
	} else if (flags & MF_COUNT_INCREASED) {
		ret = MF_HUGETLB_IN_USED;
		count_increased = true;
	} else if (folio_test_hugetlb_freed(folio)) {
		ret = MF_HUGETLB_FREED;
	} else if (folio_test_hugetlb_migratable(folio)) {

		   ^^^^*Since hugetlb_migratable is cleared for the isolated hugetlb folio*

		if (folio_try_get(folio)) {
			ret = MF_HUGETLB_IN_USED;
			count_increased = true;
		} else {
			ret = MF_HUGETLB_FREED;
		}
	} else {

		  ^^^^*Code will reach here without extra refcnt increased*

		ret = MF_HUGETLB_RETRY;
		if (!(flags & MF_NO_RETRY))
			goto out;
	}

	*Code will reach here after retry*
	rc = hugetlb_update_hwpoison(folio, page);
	if (rc >= MF_HUGETLB_FOLIO_PRE_POISONED) {
		ret = rc;
		goto out;
	}

So hugetlb_update_hwpoison() will be called even for folio under isolation
without folio_try_get(). Or am I miss something?

Thanks.
.