Re: [PATCH mm-new v2 1/1] mm/khugepaged: abort collapse scan on non-swap entries

Wei Yang
2025-10-08T01:37:05Z

On Tue, Oct 07, 2025 at 06:25:13PM +0800, Lance Yang wrote:
>
>
>On 2025/10/6 22:18, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> On 05.10.25 04:12, Lance Yang wrote:
[...]
>>
>> I was looking into some possible races with uffd-wp being set before we
>> enter do_swap_page(), but I think it might be okay (although very
>> confusing).
>
>How about the version below?
>
>```
>Currently, special non-swap entries (like PTE markers) are not caught
>early in hpage_collapse_scan_pmd(), leading to failures deep in the
>swap-in logic.
>
>A function that is called __collapse_huge_page_swapin() and documented
>to "Bring missing pages in from swap" will handle other types as well.
>
>As analyzed by David[1], we could have ended up with the following
>entry types right before do_swap_page():
>
> (1) Migration entries. We would have waited.
> -> Maybe worth it to wait, maybe not. We suspect we don't stumble
> into that frequently such that we don't care. We could always
> unlock this separately later.
>
> (2) Device-exclusive entries. We would have converted to non-exclusive.
> -> See make_device_exclusive(), we cannot tolerate PMD entries and
> have to split them through FOLL_SPLIT_PMD. As popped up during
> a recent discussion, collapsing here is actually
> counter-productive, because the next conversion will PTE-map
> it again.
> -> Ok to not collapse.
>
> (3) Device-private entries. We would have migrated to RAM.
> -> Device-private still does not support THPs, so collapsing right
> now just means that the next device access would split the
> folio again.
> -> Ok to not collapse.
>
> (4) HWPoison entries
> -> Cannot collapse
>
> (5) Markers
> -> Cannot collapse
>
>First, this patch adds an early check for these non-swap entries. If
>any one is found, the scan is aborted immediately with the
>SCAN_PTE_NON_PRESENT result, as Lorenzo suggested[2], avoiding wasted
>work.
>
>Second, as Wei pointed out[3], we may have a chance to get a non-swap
>entry, since we will drop and re-acquire the mmap lock before
>__collapse_huge_page_swapin(). To handle this, we also add a
>non_swap_entry() check there.
>
>Note that we can unlock later what we really need, and not account it
>towards max_swap_ptes.
>
>[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/09eaca7b-9988-41c7-8d6e-4802055b3f1e@redhat.com
>[2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/7df49fe7-c6b7-426a-8680-dcd55219c8bd@lucifer.local
>[3] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20251005010511.ysek2nqojebqngf3@master
>```
>
>I also think it makes sense to fold the change that adds the
>non_swap_entry() check in __collapse_huge_page_swapin() into
>this patch, rather than creating a new patch just for that :)
>

Agree.

>Hmmm... one thing I'm not sure about: regarding the uffd-wp
>race you mentioned, is the pte_swp_uffd_wp() check needed
>after non_swap_entry()? It seems like it might not be ...
>
>```
>diff --git a/mm/khugepaged.c b/mm/khugepaged.c
>index f4f57ba69d72..bec3e268dc76 100644
>--- a/mm/khugepaged.c
>+++ b/mm/khugepaged.c
>@@ -1020,6 +1020,11 @@ static int __collapse_huge_page_swapin(struct
>mm_struct *mm,
> if (!is_swap_pte(vmf.orig_pte))
> continue;
>
>+ if (non_swap_entry(pte_to_swp_entry(vmf.orig_pte))) {
>+ result = SCAN_PTE_NON_PRESENT;
>+ goto out;
>+ }
>+
> vmf.pte = pte;
> vmf.ptl = ptl;
> ret = do_swap_page(&vmf);
>```
>
>@David does that sound good to you?

--
Wei Yang
Help you, Help me