Re: [PATCH] [5/5] Avoid theoretical vmalloc fault loop

Nick Piggin
2009-01-05T11:48:24Z

This should be a -stable patch too I think.

On Monday 05 January 2009 10:36:42 Andi Kleen wrote:
> Ajith Kumar noticed:
>
> I was going through the vmalloc fault handling for x86_64 and am unclear
> about the following lines in the vmalloc_fault() function.
>
> pgd = pgd_offset(current->mm ?: &init_mm, address);
> pgd_ref = pgd_offset_k(address);
>
> Here the intention is to get the pgd corresponding to the current
> process and sync it up with the pgd in init_mm(obtained from
> pgd_offset_k). However, for kernel threads current->mm is NULL and hence
> pgd = pgd_offset(init_mm, address) = pgd_ref which means the fault
> handler returns without setting the pgd entry in the MM structure in
> the context of which the kernel thread has faulted. This could lead to
> never-ending faults and busy looping of kernel threads like pdflush.
> So, shouldn't the pgd = pgd_offset(current->mm ?: &init_mm, address);
> be
> pgd = pgd_offset(current->active_mm ?: &init_mm, address);
>
> AK: We can use active_mm unconditionally because it should
> be always set. Do that.
>
> Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
>
> ---
> arch/x86/mm/fault.c | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> Index: linux-2.6.28-test/arch/x86/mm/fault.c
> ===================================================================
> --- linux-2.6.28-test.orig/arch/x86/mm/fault.c 2008-10-24
> 13:34:41.000000000 +0200 +++
> linux-2.6.28-test/arch/x86/mm/fault.c 2009-01-02 16:01:11.000000000 +0100
> @@ -533,7 +533,7 @@
> happen within a race in page table update. In the later
> case just flush. */
>
> - pgd = pgd_offset(current->mm ?: &init_mm, address);
> + pgd = pgd_offset(current->active_mm, address);
> pgd_ref = pgd_offset_k(address);
> if (pgd_none(*pgd_ref))
> return -1;
> --
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