Re: [PATCH v2 0/4] mm/userfaultfd: modulize memory types

Peter Xu
2025-07-03T16:26:25Z

On Thu, Jul 03, 2025 at 04:55:01PM +0100, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> Peter you've ignored a large part of what I've said here, I'm not sure this is
> productive.
>
> On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 04:36:31PM -0400, Peter Xu wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 30, 2025 at 11:29:30AM +0100, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 11:46:51AM -0400, Peter Xu wrote:
> > > > [based on latest akpm/mm-new of June 27th, commit 9be7387ae43f]
> > > >
> > > > v2 changelog:
> > > > - Patch 1
> > > > - update English in commit log [David]
> > > > - move vm_uffd_ops definition to userfaultfd_k.h [Mike]
> > > > - Patch 4
> > > > - fix sparse warning on bitwise type conversions [syzbot]
> > > > - Commit message updates on explanation of vma_can_userfault check [James]
> > > >
> > > > v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250620190342.1780170-1-peterx@redhat.com
> > > >
> > > > This series is an alternative proposal of what Nikita proposed here on the
> > > > initial three patches:
> > > >
> > > > https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250404154352.23078-1-kalyazin@amazon.com
> > > >
> > > > This is not yet relevant to any guest-memfd support, but paving way for it.
> > > > Here, the major goal is to make kernel modules be able to opt-in with any
> > > > form of userfaultfd supports, like guest-memfd. This alternative option
> > > > should hopefully be cleaner, and avoid leaking userfault details into
> > > > vm_ops.fault().
> > > >
> > > > It also means this series does not depend on anything. It's a pure
> > > > refactoring of userfaultfd internals to provide a generic API, so that
> > > > other types of files, especially RAM based, can support userfaultfd without
> > > > touching mm/ at all.
> > >
> > > I'm very concerned that this change will simply move core mm functionality out
> > > of mm and into drivers where it can bitrot and cause subtle bugs?
> > >
> > > You're proposing providing stuff like page table state and asking for a folio
> > > back from a driver etc.
> > >
> > > I absolutely am not in favour of us providing core mm internals like this to
> > > drivers, and I don't want to see us having to EXPORT() mm internals just to make
> > > module-ised uffd code work (I mean I just will flat out refuse to do that).
> > >
> > > I think we need to think _very_ carefully about how we do this.
> > >
> > > I also feel like this series is at a really basic level and you've not fully
> > > determined what API calls you need.
> >
> > See:
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/all/aGWVIjmmsmskA4bp@x1.local/#t
>
> OK so it seems the point you're making there is - there's a lot of complexity -
> and you'd rather not think about it for now?

This is not a fair judgement. I think I have provided my thought process
and how I made the decision to come up with this series.

>
> My concern is that in _actuality_ you'll need to do a _lot_ more and expose a
> _lot_ more mm internals to achieve what you need to.
>
> I am happy for the API to be internal-to-mm-only.
>
> My concerns are really simple:
>
> - exposing page table manipulation outside of mm is something I just cannot
> accept us doing for reasons I already mentioned and also Liam
>
> - we should absolutely minimise how much we do expose
>
> - we mustn't have hooks that don't allow us to make sensible decisions in core
> mm code.
>
> I think overall I'm just not in favour of us having uffd functionality in
> modules, I think it's an abstraction mismatch.
>
> Now if you instead had something like:
>
> enum uffd_minor_fault_handler_type {
> UFFD_MINOR_FAULT_DEFAULT_HANDLER,
> UFFD_MINOR_FAULT_FOO_HANDLER,
> UFFD_MINOR_FAULT_BAR_HANDLER,
> etc.
> };
>
> And the module could _choose_ which should be used then that's far far better.
>
> Really - hermetically seal the sensitive parts but allow module choice.
>
> You could find ways to do this in a more sophisticated way too by e.g. having a
> driver callback that provides a config struct that sets things up.
>
> If we're going 'simple first' and can 'change what we want' why not do it like
> this to start?

Could you help to define UFFD_MINOR_FAULT_FOO_HANDLER for guest-memfd, and
how that handler would be able to hook to the guest-memfd driver? The
kernel needs to build with/without CONFIG_KVM.

What about MISSING? Do you plan to support missing in the proposal you
mentioned?

>
> >
> > >
> > > I agree that it's sensible to be incremental, but I feel like you sort of need
> > > to somewhat prove the case that you can jump from 'incremental version where we
> > > only support code in mm/' to supporting arbitrary file system code that might be
> > > modules.
> > >
> > > Because otherwise you're basically _guessing_ that you can do this, possibly, in
> > > the future and maybe it's just not the right approach but that's not clear yet?
> >
> > Did you follow up with the discussions in v1? I copied you too.
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/r/114133f5-0282-463d-9d65-3143aa658806@amazon.com
> >
> > Would Nikita's work help here? Could you explain what are you asking for
> > to prove that this works for us?
>
> Yeah thanks this seems like it actually implements useful functionality. The
> point is the API seems currently to be a stub so doesn't really give us much to
> go on as to what might ultimately be required.
>
> You say yourself in the series that you'll likely need to expand things and you
> already have todos to this effect.
>
> >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > To achieve it, this series introduced a file operation called vm_uffd_ops.
> > > > The ops needs to be provided when a file type supports any of userfaultfd.
> > > >
> > > > With that, I moved both hugetlbfs and shmem over.
> > >
> > > Well as you say below hugetlbfs is sort of a stub implementation, I wonder
> > > whether we'd need quite a bit more to make that work.
> > >
> > > One thing I'd _really_ like to avoid is us having to add a bunch of hook points
> > > into core mm code just for uffd that then call out to some driver.
> > >
> > > We've encountered such a total nightmare with .mmap() for instance in the past
> > > (including stuff that resulted in security issues) because we - simply cannot
> > > assume anything - about what the hook implementor might do with the passed
> > > parameters.
> > >
> > > This is really really problematic.
> > >
> > > I also absolutely hate the:
> > >
> > > if (uffd)
> > > do_something_weird();
> > >
> > > Pattern, so hopefully this won't proliferate that.
>
> ^ you didn't respond to this.

Can you elaborate? I don't understand how this is attached to this series.
AFAIU, the series is trying to remove some "if()s", not adding.

>
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Hugetlbfs is still very special that it will only use partial of the
> > > > vm_uffd_ops API, due to similar reason why hugetlb_vm_op_fault() has a
> > > > BUG() and so far hard-coded into core mm. But this should still be better,
> > > > because at least hugetlbfs is still always involved in feature probing
> > > > (e.g. where it used to not support ZEROPAGE and we have a hard-coded line
> > > > to fail that, and some more). Meanwhile after this series, shmem will be
> > > > completely converted to the new vm_uffd_ops API; the final vm_uffd_ops for
> > > > shmem looks like this:
> > > >
> > > > static const vm_uffd_ops shmem_uffd_ops = {
> > > > .uffd_features = __VM_UFFD_FLAGS,
> > > > .uffd_ioctls = BIT(_UFFDIO_COPY) |
> > > > BIT(_UFFDIO_ZEROPAGE) |
> > > > BIT(_UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT) |
> > > > BIT(_UFFDIO_CONTINUE) |
> > > > BIT(_UFFDIO_POISON),
> > > > .uffd_get_folio = shmem_uffd_get_folio,
> > > > .uffd_copy = shmem_mfill_atomic_pte,
> > > > };
> > > >
> > > > As I mentioned in one of my reply to Nikita, I don't like the current
> > > > interface of uffd_copy(), but this will be the minimum change version of
> > > > such API to support complete extrenal-module-ready userfaultfd. Here, very
> > > > minimal change will be needed from shmem side to support that.
> > >
> > > Right, maybe a better version of this interface might address some of my
> > > concerns... :)
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Meanwhile, the vm_uffd_ops is also not the only place one will need to
> > > > provide to support userfaultfd. Normally vm_ops.fault() will also need to
> > > > be updated, but that's a generic function and it'll play together with the
> > > > new vm_uffd_ops to make everything fly.
> > > >
> > > > No functional change expected at all after the whole series applied. There
> > > > might be some slightly stricter check on uffd ops here and there in the
> > > > last patch, but that really shouldn't stand out anywhere to anyone.
> > > >
> > > > For testing: besides the cross-compilation tests, I did also try with
> > > > uffd-stress in a VM to measure any perf difference before/after the change;
> > > > The static call becomes a pointer now. I really cannot measure anything
> > > > different, which is more or less expected.
> > > >
> > > > Comments welcomed, thanks.
> > > >
> > > > Peter Xu (4):
> > > > mm: Introduce vm_uffd_ops API
> > > > mm/shmem: Support vm_uffd_ops API
> > > > mm/hugetlb: Support vm_uffd_ops API
> > > > mm: Apply vm_uffd_ops API to core mm
> > > >
> > > > include/linux/mm.h | 9 +++
> > > > include/linux/shmem_fs.h | 14 -----
> > > > include/linux/userfaultfd_k.h | 98 +++++++++++++++++++----------
> > > > mm/hugetlb.c | 19 ++++++
> > > > mm/shmem.c | 28 ++++++++-
> > > > mm/userfaultfd.c | 115 +++++++++++++++++++++++++---------
> > > > 6 files changed, 207 insertions(+), 76 deletions(-)
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > 2.49.0
> > > >
> > >
> > > Sorry to be critical, I just want to make sure we're not setting ourselves up
> > > for trouble here.
> > >
> > > I _very much_ support efforts to make uffd more generalised, and ideally to find
> > > a way to separate out shmem and hugetlbfs implementation bits, so I support the
> > > intent _fully_.
> > >
> > > I just want to make sure we do it in a safe way :)
> >
> > Any explicit suggestions (besides objections)?
>
> I gave some above.
>
> I'm fundamentally opposed to us exposing page table manipulation or really any
> state subject to sensitive locks to modules.
>
> Cheers, Lorenzo
>

--
Peter Xu