From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-alma10-1.taild15c8.ts.net [100.103.45.18]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 5704A42314D; Fri, 22 May 2026 15:38:04 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=100.103.45.18 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1779464286; cv=none; b=QN8tYz/gRjjahU9BqRPZyiLX+18NdSYPedLedUFpDrxSu2eVHcjiVBDRR5lxIvvguRtUK6Gx1WwsOlgyVLbq20pD5XX9uNR7HH7v0y7enMGWIb1ZIYVjrqd7/3oJk4n95HzPM7/VOTgnfTnlNv9w6JojSHbpylj7OsLAUdQFXLM= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1779464286; c=relaxed/simple; bh=HS5K7Miq/JgsqmZgZr78cHmi4Na5MhUbV3a81rxKXQQ=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=O/0SUvfGgq+x0hNmFinKDnTNvbmgGWIb3Apl+POdlStFtzcBBba+o9HKMAs2euJDu5ssDyVn/od6obZHwCN+U+wEuG5daiQedjpc5S4iB1lVOkLJ0bYkzR4a8+F4zMM94tAkeo+blPM3bdCt+MdDuTs4S3rlIHtbOjYjEF7XjTE= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=e3S85iit; arc=none smtp.client-ip=100.103.45.18 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="e3S85iit" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 4206E1F000E9; Fri, 22 May 2026 15:37:57 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=kernel.org; s=k20260515; t=1779464283; bh=Ue6+BrgA5cCiK29yEQFjVEW/61iWgshQWpISoK0a5mo=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To; b=e3S85iit9E//Da14omyK4sSzq5E+5P6CirUlrWrNKkWRCr0gH3q2SRSlfFihqMpFf lNIJ+Ym6rgTd0CfoB7Pca50HGx7yg/Kc5w/2lEe4qOmRDVIKJHaZ2mwp0lyokkwzMM 6vLSr5NafsQy9TfFAYNw8jc2lOZNyREETBaXhqe0wsF6vVu5L5ph14ppOzYFh+6m+v gJ/dcbqjjuTKEbZXZCc79Pa0JwpRwFDh/QUW0F5E1DEDjYhtDdgK1JyVd4OtmokLSn On0u89WSmNioM38n363WRHRzMjaBZLPk3SQhu/mA8NqmleLSnwm2/5ltuBOTzidZnQ dj5LZD2lAZZXQ== Date: Fri, 22 May 2026 16:37:54 +0100 From: Lorenzo Stoakes To: Yang Shi Cc: "David Hildenbrand (Arm)" , Suren Baghdasaryan , Barry Song , Matthew Wilcox , akpm@linux-foundation.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, liam@infradead.org, vbabka@kernel.org, rppt@kernel.org, mhocko@suse.com, jack@suse.cz, pfalcato@suse.de, wanglian@kylinos.cn, chentao@kylinos.cn, lianux.mm@gmail.com, kunwu.chan@gmail.com, liyangouwen1@oppo.com, chrisl@kernel.org, kasong@tencent.com, shikemeng@huaweicloud.com, nphamcs@gmail.com, bhe@redhat.com, youngjun.park@lge.com, linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, loongarch@lists.linux.dev, linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org, linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org, linux-s390@vger.kernel.org, Nanzhe Zhao Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 0/5] mm: reduce mmap_lock contention and improve page fault performance Message-ID: References: Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 02:39:49PM -0700, Yang Shi wrote: > On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 3:34 AM David Hildenbrand (Arm) > wrote: > > > > On 5/19/26 14:53, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote: > > > On Mon, May 18, 2026 at 12:56:59PM -0700, Suren Baghdasaryan wrote: > > > > > >>> > > >>> I think we either need to fix `fork()`, or keep the current > > >>> behavior of dropping the VMA lock before performing I/O. > > >> > > >> I see. So, this problem arises from the fact that we are changing the > > >> pagefaults requiring I/O operation to hold VMA lock... > > >> And you want to lock VMA on fork only if vma_is_anonymous(vma) || > > >> is_cow_mapping(vma->vm_flags). So, we will be blocking page faults for > > >> anonymous and COW VMAs only while holding mmap_write_lock, preventing > > >> any VMA modification. On the surface, that looks ok to me but I might > > >> be missing some corner cases. If nobody sees any obvious issues, I > > >> think it's worth a try. > > > > > > Not sure if you noticed but I did raise concerns ;) > > > > > > I wonder if you've confused the fault path and fork here, as I think Barry has > > > been a little unclear on that. > > > > > > What's being suggested in this thread is to fundamentally change fork behaviour > > > so it's different from the entire history of the kernel (or - presumably - at > > > least recent history :) > > I don't want fork() to become different in that regard. > > > > There is already a slight difference with vs. without per-VMA locks, because > > there is a window in-between us taking the write mmap_lock and all the per-VMA > > locks. I raised that previously [1] and assumed that it is probably fine. > > > > I also raised in the past why I think we must not allow concurrent page faults, > > at least as soon as anonymous memory is involved [2]. > > Thanks for sharing the context, it is quite helpful to understand the > race conditions. Because Lorenzo also raised the concern about page > fault race, I will reply to all the concerns regarding page fault race > together in this thread. > > IIUC, there is already some sort of race with per vma lock. Before per > vma lock, mmap_lock did lock everything. So page fault happened either > before fork or after fork. But page fault can happen on other VMAs > which have not been lock'ed yet during fork with per vma lock. For > example, we have 3 VMAs, we lock the first VMA, but page fault still > can happen on the other 2 VMAs during fork if they already have > anon_vma. This is the status quo now, but it seems not harmful. > > The bad race shared by David is caused by racing with copy page. So it > seems like it will be fine as long as we serialize copy page against > page fault if I don't miss anything. Since we decide whether to copy > page or not by checking vma->anon_vma, so it seems fine to not take > vma lock if vma->anon_vma is NULL. This will not introduce more race > either because setting up a new anon_vma in page fault or madvise > requires taking mmap_lock according to the earlier discussions. NAK. No. We're not doing this, we're not changing how fork fundamentally behaves because of concerns about the fault path. I've delineated exactly why I think this is a problem and you're pressing ahead without addressing those concerns. So at this point I'm going to be a grumpy maintainer and just say no, stop please :) Let's fix this in the right place. You don't fix a leak in the roof by repairing a shelf next door :) Thanks, Lorenzo > > Thanks, > Yang > > > > > ... and I raised that this is pretty much slower by design right now: "Well, the > > design decision that CONFIG_PER_VMA_LOCK made for now to make page faults fast > > and to make blocking any page faults from happening to be slower ..." [3] > > > > [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/970295ab-e85d-7af3-76e6-df53a5c52f8b@redhat.com/ > > [2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/7e3f35cc-59b9-bf12-b8b1-4ed78223844a@redhat.com/ > > [3] https://lore.kernel.org/all/2efa2c89-3765-721d-2c3c-00590054aa5b@redhat.com/ > > > > -- > > Cheers, > > > > David > >