Re: Improve page refcount scalability

[Kiryl Shutsemau <kirill@shutemov.name>]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2026 at 11:43:14AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Comments?

There's a race in filemap_read_rcu_batch(). If the folio is replaced
under us with a new one and then i_size is extended, we can read data
that never got written there:

  CPU0                              CPU1
  filemap_read()
    filemap_read_rcu()
      filemap_read_rcu_batch()
        folio = xas_load()  // A
        test_bit(PG_rcu_free, A)
        xas_reload() == A
                                    fadvise(FADV_DONTNEED)
                                    // A leaves the page cache, its
                                    // free is deferred: A stays valid
                                    write()
                                    // page cache re-populated
                                    // i_size extended
        isize = i_size_read()
        // i_size is extended
        copy_page_to_iter(A)
        // we read from old folio
        // data that user never wrote

We need to re-check that the folio is still in the page cache after we
get the new i_size. See the patch below.

My branch contains a few more changes that address downstream effects of
RCU-freeing the page cache. But we can come back to that later once we get
agreement on the core mechanism.

diff --git a/mm/filemap.c b/mm/filemap.c
index b85de94a1b6e..0d9fcc35dc64 100644
--- a/mm/filemap.c
+++ b/mm/filemap.c
@@ -2956,6 +2956,8 @@ static bool filemap_read_rcu_batch(struct kiocb *iocb, struct iov_iter *iter,
 		isize = i_size_read(inode);
 		if (pos >= isize)
 			break;
+		if (xas_reload(&xas) != folio)
+			break;
 		bytes = min_t(loff_t, isize - pos,
 			      min_t(size_t, iov_iter_count(iter),
 				    PAGE_SIZE - offset));
-- 
  Kiryl Shutsemau / Kirill A. Shutemov