[PATCH 6.18 050/212] mm/huge_memory: fix a folio_split() race condition with folio_try_get()

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-03-23T14:03:22Z

From: Zi Yan <ziy@nvidia.com>

During a pagecache folio split, the values in the related xarray should
not be changed from the original folio at xarray split time until all
after-split folios are well formed and stored in the xarray. Current use
of xas_try_split() in __split_unmapped_folio() lets some after-split
folios show up at wrong indices in the xarray. When these misplaced
after-split folios are unfrozen, before correct folios are stored via
__xa_store(), and grabbed by folio_try_get(), they are returned to
userspace at wrong file indices, causing data corruption. More detailed
explanation is at the bottom.

The reproducer is at: https://github.com/dfinity/thp-madv-remove-test
It
1. creates a memfd,
2. forks,
3. in the child process, maps the file with large folios (via shmem code
path) and reads the mapped file continuously with 16 threads,
4. in the parent process, uses madvise(MADV_REMOVE) to punch poles in the
large folio.

Data corruption can be observed without the fix. Basically, data from a
wrong page->index is returned.

Fix it by using the original folio in xas_try_split() calls, so that
folio_try_get() can get the right after-split folios after the original
folio is unfrozen.

Uniform split, split_huge_page*(), is not affected, since it uses
xas_split_alloc() and xas_split() only once and stores the original folio
in the xarray. Change xas_split() used in uniform split branch to use the
original folio to avoid confusion.

Fixes below points to the commit introduces the code, but folio_split() is
used in a later commit 7460b470a131f ("mm/truncate: use folio_split() in
truncate operation").

More details:

For example, a folio f is split non-uniformly into f, f2, f3, f4 like
below:
+----------------+---------+----+----+
| f | f2 | f3 | f4 |
+----------------+---------+----+----+
but the xarray would look like below after __split_unmapped_folio() is
done:
+----------------+---------+----+----+
| f | f2 | f3 | f3 |
+----------------+---------+----+----+

After __split_unmapped_folio(), the code changes the xarray and unfreezes
after-split folios:

1. unfreezes f2, __xa_store(f2)
2. unfreezes f3, __xa_store(f3)
3. unfreezes f4, __xa_store(f4), which overwrites the second f3 to f4.
4. unfreezes f.

Meanwhile, a parallel filemap_get_entry() can read the second f3 from the
xarray and use folio_try_get() on it at step 2 when f3 is unfrozen. Then,
f3 is wrongly returned to user.

After the fix, the xarray looks like below after __split_unmapped_folio():
+----------------+---------+----+----+
| f | f | f | f |
+----------------+---------+----+----+
so that the race window no longer exists.

[ziy@nvidia.com: move comment, per David]
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/5C9FA053-A4C6-4615-BE05-74E47A6462B3@nvidia.com
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20260302203159.3208341-1-ziy@nvidia.com
Fixes: 00527733d0dc ("mm/huge_memory: add two new (not yet used) functions for folio_split()")
Signed-off-by: Zi Yan <ziy@nvidia.com>
Reported-by: Bas van Dijk <bas@dfinity.org>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAKNNEtw5_kZomhkugedKMPOG-sxs5Q5OLumWJdiWXv+C9Yct0w@mail.gmail.com/
Tested-by: Lance Yang <lance.yang@linux.dev>
Reviewed-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com>
Reviewed-by: Wei Yang <richard.weiyang@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com>
Cc: Barry Song <baohua@kernel.org>
Cc: David Hildenbrand <david@kernel.org>
Cc: Dev Jain <dev.jain@arm.com>
Cc: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
Cc: Liam Howlett <liam.howlett@oracle.com>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox (Oracle) <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Nico Pache <npache@redhat.com>
Cc: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
(cherry picked from commit 577a1f495fd78d8fb61b67ac3d3b595b01f6fcb0)
Signed-off-by: Zi Yan <ziy@nvidia.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
mm/huge_memory.c | 9 +++++++--
1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

--- a/mm/huge_memory.c
+++ b/mm/huge_memory.c
@@ -3438,6 +3438,7 @@ static int __split_unmapped_folio(struct
{
int order = folio_order(folio);
int start_order = uniform_split ? new_order : order - 1;
+ struct folio *old_folio = folio;
bool stop_split = false;
struct folio *next;
int split_order;
@@ -3468,12 +3469,16 @@ static int __split_unmapped_folio(struct
* uniform split has xas_split_alloc() called before
* irq is disabled to allocate enough memory, whereas
* non-uniform split can handle ENOMEM.
+ * Use the to-be-split folio, so that a parallel
+ * folio_try_get() waits on it until xarray is updated
+ * with after-split folios and the original one is
+ * unfrozen.
*/
if (uniform_split)
- xas_split(xas, folio, old_order);
+ xas_split(xas, old_folio, old_order);
else {
xas_set_order(xas, folio->index, split_order);
- xas_try_split(xas, folio, old_order);
+ xas_try_split(xas, old_folio, old_order);
if (xas_error(xas)) {
ret = xas_error(xas);
stop_split = true;