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From: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
To: stable@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Gregory Price <gourry@gourry.net>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	sashiko-bot <sashiko-bot@kernel.org>,
	"Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)" <ljs@kernel.org>,
	"David Hildenbrand (Arm)" <david@kernel.org>,
	Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>,
	"Liam R. Howlett" <liam@infradead.org>,
	Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>,
	Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH 5.15.y] mm/madvise: use folio_trylock() in the cold/pageout PMD split
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2026 09:42:26 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261110144208.1960054-1-sashal@kernel.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20261107060446-failed-5.15-5a6c9cf117fc@kernel.org>

From: Gregory Price <gourry@gourry.net>

[ Upstream commit 5a6c9cf117fca3c38a98fb2a2d5549795c8b0b73 ]

MADV_COLD or MADV_PAGEOUT over part of a PMD splits the THP in
madvise_cold_or_pageout_pte_range().  Two threads doing that to the same
THP create spurious failures.

  CPU0                          CPU1
  ----                          ----
  folio_get()
  spin_unlock(ptl)
  folio_lock()
                                folio_get()
                                spin_unlock(ptl)
                                folio_lock()  <- blocks, keeps its ref
  split_folio()
    folio_expected_ref_count(folio) != folio_ref_count(folio) - 1
    -EAGAIN

CPU1 cannot drop its reference until it gets the lock CPU0 holds, so
CPU0's split always fails.  folio_trylock() makes CPU1 leave without ever
taking a reference.  The PTE branch of this same function already does
this, as do madvise_free_pte_range() and madvise_free_huge_pmd().

Reproducer: 400 rounds of eight threads calling MADV_COLD on half of each
of eight THPs, re-formed with MADV_COLLAPSE between rounds.  From
/proc/vmstat:

                     thp_split_page   thp_split_page_failed
    before                     3186                     860
    after                      3200                       0

The short before count is rounds where every thread failed and the advice
was dropped for that THP entirely.

On failure the walker returns 0 and nothing retries.  The PMD path becomes
best effort when the folio lock is held elsewhere - same as the PTE path.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20260912110540.3203010-1-gourry@gourry.net
Signed-off-by: Gregory Price (Meta) <gourry@gourry.net>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Reported-by: sashiko-bot <sashiko-bot@kernel.org>
Closes: https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260817220810.1175596-1-gourry%40gourry.net
Acked-by: Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) <ljs@kernel.org>
Acked-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@kernel.org>
Assisted-by: LLM
Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Cc: Liam R. Howlett <liam@infradead.org>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
[ sashal: replaced folio_trylock(folio) with trylock_page(page) to match the existing page-based API ]
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
---
 mm/madvise.c | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/mm/madvise.c b/mm/madvise.c
index 367220e1fe52a..b19ed034e84f4 100644
--- a/mm/madvise.c
+++ b/mm/madvise.c
@@ -351,9 +351,10 @@ static int madvise_cold_or_pageout_pte_range(pmd_t *pmd,
 		if (next - addr != HPAGE_PMD_SIZE) {
 			int err;
 
+			if (!trylock_page(page))
+				goto huge_unlock;
 			get_page(page);
 			spin_unlock(ptl);
-			lock_page(page);
 			err = split_huge_page(page);
 			unlock_page(page);
 			put_page(page);
-- 
2.53.0


      reply	other threads:[~2026-11-10 14:42 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-11-07 11:04 FAILED: patch "[PATCH] mm/madvise: use folio_trylock() in the cold/pageout PMD split" failed to apply to 5.15-stable tree Sasha Levin
2026-11-10 14:42 ` Sasha Levin [this message]

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