Re: [PATCH v2 23/26] userfaultfd: wp: don't wake up when doing write protect

Peter Xu
2019-02-26T06:25:11Z

On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 11:09:35PM +0200, Mike Rapoport wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 12, 2019 at 10:56:29AM +0800, Peter Xu wrote:
> > It does not make sense to try to wake up any waiting thread when we're
> > write-protecting a memory region. Only wake up when resolving a write
> > protected page fault.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Peter Xu <peterx@redhat.com>
> > ---
> > fs/userfaultfd.c | 13 ++++++++-----
> > 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/fs/userfaultfd.c b/fs/userfaultfd.c
> > index 81962d62520c..f1f61a0278c2 100644
> > --- a/fs/userfaultfd.c
> > +++ b/fs/userfaultfd.c
> > @@ -1771,6 +1771,7 @@ static int userfaultfd_writeprotect(struct userfaultfd_ctx *ctx,
> > struct uffdio_writeprotect uffdio_wp;
> > struct uffdio_writeprotect __user *user_uffdio_wp;
> > struct userfaultfd_wake_range range;
> > + bool mode_wp, mode_dontwake;
> >
> > if (READ_ONCE(ctx->mmap_changing))
> > return -EAGAIN;
> > @@ -1789,18 +1790,20 @@ static int userfaultfd_writeprotect(struct userfaultfd_ctx *ctx,
> > if (uffdio_wp.mode & ~(UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT_MODE_DONTWAKE |
> > UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT_MODE_WP))
> > return -EINVAL;
> > - if ((uffdio_wp.mode & UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT_MODE_WP) &&
> > - (uffdio_wp.mode & UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT_MODE_DONTWAKE))
> > +
> > + mode_wp = uffdio_wp.mode & UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT_MODE_WP;
> > + mode_dontwake = uffdio_wp.mode & UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT_MODE_DONTWAKE;
> > +
> > + if (mode_wp && mode_dontwake)
> > return -EINVAL;
>
> This actually means the opposite of the commit message text ;-)
>
> Is any dependency of _WP and _DONTWAKE needed at all?

So this is indeed confusing at least, because both you and Jerome have
asked the same question... :)

My understanding is that we don't have any reason to wake up any
thread when we are write-protecting a range, in that sense the flag
UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT_MODE_DONTWAKE is already meaningless in the
UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT ioctl context. So before everything here's how
these flags are defined:

struct uffdio_writeprotect {
struct uffdio_range range;
/* !WP means undo writeprotect. DONTWAKE is valid only with !WP */
#define UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT_MODE_WP ((__u64)1<<0)
#define UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT_MODE_DONTWAKE ((__u64)1<<1)
__u64 mode;
};

To make it clear, we simply define it as "DONTWAKE is valid only with
!WP". When with that, "mode_wp && mode_dontwake" is indeed a
meaningless flag combination. Though please note that it does not
mean that the operation ("don't wake up the thread") is meaningless -
that's what we'll do no matter what when WP==1. IMHO it's only about
the interface not the behavior.

I don't have a good way to make this clearer because firstly we'll
need the WP flag to mark whether we're protecting or unprotecting the
pages. Later on, we need DONTWAKE for page fault handling case to
mark that we don't want to wake up the waiting thread now. So both
the flags have their reason to stay so far. Then with all these in
mind what I can think of is only to forbid using DONTWAKE in WP case,
and that's how above definition comes (I believe, because it was
defined that way even before I started to work on it and I think it
makes sense).

Thanks,

--
Peter Xu