Re: GUP guarantees wrt to userspace mappings

Kirill A. Shutemov
2016-05-02T15:00:24Z

On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 03:39:20PM +0200, Jerome Glisse wrote:
> On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 03:14:02PM +0300, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> > On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 01:15:13PM +0200, Jerome Glisse wrote:
> > > On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 01:41:19PM +0300, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> > > > Other thing I would like to discuss is if there's a problem on vfio side.
> > > > To me it looks like vfio expects guarantee from get_user_pages() which it
> > > > doesn't provide: obtaining pin on the page doesn't guarantee that the page
> > > > is going to remain mapped into userspace until the pin is gone.
> > > >
> > > > Even with THP COW regressing fixed, vfio would stay fragile: any
> > > > MADV_DONTNEED/fork()/mremap()/whatever what would make vfio expectation
> > > > broken.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Well i don't think it is fair/accurate assessment of get_user_pages(), page
> > > must remain mapped to same virtual address until pin is gone. I am ignoring
> > > mremap() as it is a scient decision from userspace and while virtual address
> > > change in that case, the pined page behind should move with the mapping.
> > > Same of MADV_DONTNEED. I agree that get_user_pages() is broken after fork()
> > > but this have been the case since dawn of time, so it is something expected.
> > >
> > > If not vfio, then direct-io, have been expecting this kind of behavior for
> > > long time, so i see this as part of get_user_pages() guarantee.
> > >
> > > Concerning vfio, not providing this guarantee will break countless number of
> > > workload. Thing like qemu/kvm allocate anonymous memory and hand it over to
> > > the guest kernel which presents it as memory. Now a device driver inside the
> > > guest kernel need to get bus mapping for a given (guest) page, which from
> > > host point of view means a mapping from anonymous page to bus mapping but
> > > for guest to keep accessing the same page the anonymous mapping (ie a
> > > specific virtual address on the host side) must keep pointing to the same
> > > page. This have been the case with get_user_pages() until now, so whether
> > > we like it or not we must keep that guarantee.
> > >
> > > This kind of workload knows that they can't do mremap()/fork()/... and keep
> > > that guarantee but they at expect existing guarantee and i don't think we
> > > can break that.
> >
> > Quick look around:
> >
> > - I don't see any check page_count() around __replace_page() in uprobes,
> > so it can easily replace pinned page.
>
> Not an issue for existing user as this is only use to instrument code, existing
> user do not execute code from virtual address for which they have done a GUP.

Okay, so we can establish that GUP doesn't provide the guarantee in some
cases.

> > - KSM has the page_count() check, there's still race wrt GUP_fast: it can
> > take the pin between the check and establishing new pte entry.
>
> KSM is not an issue for existing user as they all do get_user_pages() with
> write = 1 and the KSM first map page read only before considering to replace
> them and check page refcount. So there can be no race with gup_fast there.

In vfio case, 'write' is conditional on IOMMU_WRITE, meaning not all
get_user_pages() are with write=1.

> > - khugepaged: the same story as with KSM.
>
> I am assuming you are talking about collapse_huge_page() here, if you look in
> that function there is a comment about GUP_fast. Noneless i believe the comment
> is wrong as i believe there is an existing race window btw pmdp_collapse_flush()
> and __collapse_huge_page_isolate() :
>
> get_user_pages_fast() | collapse_huge_page()
> gup_pmd_range() -> valid pmd | ...
> | pmdp_collapse_flush() clear pmd
> | ...
> | __collapse_huge_page_isolate()
> | [Above check page count and see no GUP]
> gup_pte_range() -> ref page |
>
> This is a very unlikely race because get_user_pages_fast() can not be preempted
> while collapse_huge_page() can be preempted btw pmdp_collapse_flush() and
> __collapse_huge_page_isolate(), more over collapse_huge_page() has lot more
> instructions to chew on than get_user_pages_fast() btw gup_pmd_range() and
> gup_pte_range().

Yes, the race window is small, but there.

> So i think this is an unlikely race. I am not sure how to forbid it from
> happening, except maybe in get_user_pages_fast() by checking pmd is still
> valid after gup_pte_range().

Switching to non-fast GUP would help :-P

> > I don't see how we can deliver on the guarantee, especially with lockless
> > GUP_fast.
> >
> > Or am I missing something important?
>
> So as said above, i think existing user of get_user_pages() are not sensitive
> to the races you pointed above. I am sure there are some corner case where
> the guarantee that GUP pin a page against a virtual address is violated but
> i do not think they apply to any existing user of GUP.
>
> Note that i would personaly like that this existing assumption about GUP did
> not exist. I hate it, but fact is that it does exist and nobody can remember
> where the Doc did park the Delorean

The drivers who want the guarantee can provide own ->mmap and have more
control on what is visible in userspace.

Alternatively, we have mmu_notifiers to track changes in userspace
mappings.

--
Kirill A. Shutemov