Re: [PATCH V4 mm-hotfixes 2/3] mm: introduce and use {pgd,p4d}_populate_kernel()

Lorenzo Stoakes
2025-08-11T09:11:44Z

On Mon, Aug 11, 2025 at 02:34:19PM +0900, Harry Yoo wrote:
> Introduce and use {pgd,p4d}_populate_kernel() in core MM code when
> populating PGD and P4D entries for the kernel address space.
> These helpers ensure proper synchronization of page tables when
> updating the kernel portion of top-level page tables.
>
> Until now, the kernel has relied on each architecture to handle
> synchronization of top-level page tables in an ad-hoc manner.
> For example, see commit 9b861528a801 ("x86-64, mem: Update all PGDs for
> direct mapping and vmemmap mapping changes").
>
> However, this approach has proven fragile for following reasons:
>
> 1) It is easy to forget to perform the necessary page table
> synchronization when introducing new changes.
> For instance, commit 4917f55b4ef9 ("mm/sparse-vmemmap: improve memory
> savings for compound devmaps") overlooked the need to synchronize
> page tables for the vmemmap area.
>
> 2) It is also easy to overlook that the vmemmap and direct mapping areas
> must not be accessed before explicit page table synchronization.
> For example, commit 8d400913c231 ("x86/vmemmap: handle unpopulated
> sub-pmd ranges")) caused crashes by accessing the vmemmap area
> before calling sync_global_pgds().
>
> To address this, as suggested by Dave Hansen, introduce _kernel() variants
> of the page table population helpers, which invoke architecture-specific
> hooks to properly synchronize page tables. These are introduced in a new
> header file, include/linux/pgalloc.h, so they can be called from common code.
>
> They reuse existing infrastructure for vmalloc and ioremap.
> Synchronization requirements are determined by ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK,
> and the actual synchronization is performed by arch_sync_kernel_mappings().
>
> This change currently targets only x86_64, so only PGD and P4D level
> helpers are introduced. In theory, PUD and PMD level helpers can be added
> later if needed by other architectures.
>
> Currently this is a no-op, since no architecture sets
> PGTBL_{PGD,P4D}_MODIFIED in ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK.
>
> Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
> Fixes: 8d400913c231 ("x86/vmemmap: handle unpopulated sub-pmd ranges")
> Suggested-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
> Signed-off-by: Harry Yoo <harry.yoo@oracle.com>
> ---
> include/linux/pgalloc.h | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++

Could we put this in the correct place in MAINTAINERS please? I think
MEMORY MANAGEMENT - CORE is correct, given the below file is there.

> include/linux/pgtable.h | 4 ++--

Thanks!