[PATCH v3 mm-hotfixes 1/5] mm: move page table sync declarations to linux/pgtable.h

[PATCH v3 mm-hotfixes 1/5] mm: move page table sync declarations to linux/pgtable.h

[Harry Yoo]

Move ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK and arch_sync_kernel_mappings() to
linux/pgtable.h so that they can be used outside of vmalloc and ioremap.

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Harry Yoo <harry.yoo@oracle.com>
---
 include/linux/pgtable.h | 17 +++++++++++++++++
 include/linux/vmalloc.h | 16 ----------------
 2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/pgtable.h b/include/linux/pgtable.h
index 0b6e1f781d86..e564f338c758 100644
--- a/include/linux/pgtable.h
+++ b/include/linux/pgtable.h
@@ -1329,6 +1329,23 @@ static inline void ptep_modify_prot_commit(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 	__ptep_modify_prot_commit(vma, addr, ptep, pte);
 }
 #endif /* __HAVE_ARCH_PTEP_MODIFY_PROT_TRANSACTION */
+
+/*
+ * Architectures can set this mask to a combination of PGTBL_P?D_MODIFIED values
+ * and let generic vmalloc and ioremap code know when arch_sync_kernel_mappings()
+ * needs to be called.
+ */
+#ifndef ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK
+#define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK 0
+#endif
+
+/*
+ * There is no default implementation for arch_sync_kernel_mappings(). It is
+ * relied upon the compiler to optimize calls out if ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK
+ * is 0.
+ */
+void arch_sync_kernel_mappings(unsigned long start, unsigned long end);
+
 #endif /* CONFIG_MMU */
 
 /*
diff --git a/include/linux/vmalloc.h b/include/linux/vmalloc.h
index fdc9aeb74a44..2759dac6be44 100644
--- a/include/linux/vmalloc.h
+++ b/include/linux/vmalloc.h
@@ -219,22 +219,6 @@ extern int remap_vmalloc_range(struct vm_area_struct *vma, void *addr,
 int vmap_pages_range(unsigned long addr, unsigned long end, pgprot_t prot,
 		     struct page **pages, unsigned int page_shift);
 
-/*
- * Architectures can set this mask to a combination of PGTBL_P?D_MODIFIED values
- * and let generic vmalloc and ioremap code know when arch_sync_kernel_mappings()
- * needs to be called.
- */
-#ifndef ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK
-#define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK 0
-#endif
-
-/*
- * There is no default implementation for arch_sync_kernel_mappings(). It is
- * relied upon the compiler to optimize calls out if ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK
- * is 0.
- */
-void arch_sync_kernel_mappings(unsigned long start, unsigned long end);
-
 /*
  *	Lowlevel-APIs (not for driver use!)
  */
-- 
2.43.0

[PATCH v3 mm-hotfixes 2/5] mm: introduce and use {pgd,p4d}_populate_kernel()

[Harry Yoo]

Introduce and use {pgd,p4d}_populate_kernel() in core MM code when
populating PGD and P4D entries for the kernel address space.
These helpers ensure proper synchronization of page tables when
updating the kernel portion of top-level page tables.

Until now, the kernel has relied on each architecture to handle
synchronization of top-level page tables in an ad-hoc manner.
For example, see commit 9b861528a801 ("x86-64, mem: Update all PGDs for
direct mapping and vmemmap mapping changes").

However, this approach has proven fragile for following reasons:

  1) It is easy to forget to perform the necessary page table
     synchronization when introducing new changes.
     For instance, commit 4917f55b4ef9 ("mm/sparse-vmemmap: improve memory
     savings for compound devmaps") overlooked the need to synchronize
     page tables for the vmemmap area.

  2) It is also easy to overlook that the vmemmap and direct mapping areas
     must not be accessed before explicit page table synchronization.
     For example, commit 8d400913c231 ("x86/vmemmap: handle unpopulated
     sub-pmd ranges")) caused crashes by accessing the vmemmap area
     before calling sync_global_pgds().

To address this, as suggested by Dave Hansen, introduce _kernel() variants
of the page table population helpers, which invoke architecture-specific
hooks to properly synchronize page tables.

They reuse existing infrastructure for vmalloc and ioremap.
Synchronization requirements are determined by ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK,
and the actual synchronization is performed by arch_sync_kernel_mappings().

This change currently targets only x86_64, so only PGD and P4D level
helpers are introduced. In theory, PUD and PMD level helpers can be added
later if needed by other architectures.

Currently this is a no-op, since no architecture sets
PGTBL_{PGD,P4D}_MODIFIED in ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK.

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Suggested-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Harry Yoo <harry.yoo@oracle.com>
---
 include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 include/linux/pgtable.h       |  4 ++--
 mm/kasan/init.c               | 10 +++++-----
 mm/percpu.c                   |  4 ++--
 mm/sparse-vmemmap.c           |  4 ++--
 5 files changed, 27 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h b/include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h
index 3c8ec3bfea44..fc0ab8eed5a6 100644
--- a/include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h
+++ b/include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_MMU
 
+#include <linux/pgtable.h>
+
 #define GFP_PGTABLE_KERNEL	(GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_ZERO)
 #define GFP_PGTABLE_USER	(GFP_PGTABLE_KERNEL | __GFP_ACCOUNT)
 
@@ -296,6 +298,20 @@ static inline void pgd_free(struct mm_struct *mm, pgd_t *pgd)
 }
 #endif
 
+#define pgd_populate_kernel(addr, pgd, p4d)			\
+do {								\
+	pgd_populate(&init_mm, pgd, p4d);			\
+	if (ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK & PGTBL_PGD_MODIFIED)	\
+		arch_sync_kernel_mappings(addr, addr);		\
+} while (0)
+
+#define p4d_populate_kernel(addr, p4d, pud)			\
+do {								\
+	p4d_populate(&init_mm, p4d, pud);			\
+	if (ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK & PGTBL_P4D_MODIFIED)	\
+		arch_sync_kernel_mappings(addr, addr);		\
+} while (0)
+
 #endif /* CONFIG_MMU */
 
 #endif /* __ASM_GENERIC_PGALLOC_H */
diff --git a/include/linux/pgtable.h b/include/linux/pgtable.h
index e564f338c758..2e24514ab6d0 100644
--- a/include/linux/pgtable.h
+++ b/include/linux/pgtable.h
@@ -1332,8 +1332,8 @@ static inline void ptep_modify_prot_commit(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 
 /*
  * Architectures can set this mask to a combination of PGTBL_P?D_MODIFIED values
- * and let generic vmalloc and ioremap code know when arch_sync_kernel_mappings()
- * needs to be called.
+ * and let generic vmalloc, ioremap and page table update code know when
+ * arch_sync_kernel_mappings() needs to be called.
  */
 #ifndef ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK
 #define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK 0
diff --git a/mm/kasan/init.c b/mm/kasan/init.c
index ced6b29fcf76..43de820ee282 100644
--- a/mm/kasan/init.c
+++ b/mm/kasan/init.c
@@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ static int __ref zero_p4d_populate(pgd_t *pgd, unsigned long addr,
 			pud_t *pud;
 			pmd_t *pmd;
 
-			p4d_populate(&init_mm, p4d,
+			p4d_populate_kernel(addr, p4d,
 					lm_alias(kasan_early_shadow_pud));
 			pud = pud_offset(p4d, addr);
 			pud_populate(&init_mm, pud,
@@ -212,7 +212,7 @@ static int __ref zero_p4d_populate(pgd_t *pgd, unsigned long addr,
 			} else {
 				p = early_alloc(PAGE_SIZE, NUMA_NO_NODE);
 				pud_init(p);
-				p4d_populate(&init_mm, p4d, p);
+				p4d_populate_kernel(addr, p4d, p);
 			}
 		}
 		zero_pud_populate(p4d, addr, next);
@@ -251,10 +251,10 @@ int __ref kasan_populate_early_shadow(const void *shadow_start,
 			 * puds,pmds, so pgd_populate(), pud_populate()
 			 * is noops.
 			 */
-			pgd_populate(&init_mm, pgd,
+			pgd_populate_kernel(addr, pgd,
 					lm_alias(kasan_early_shadow_p4d));
 			p4d = p4d_offset(pgd, addr);
-			p4d_populate(&init_mm, p4d,
+			p4d_populate_kernel(addr, p4d,
 					lm_alias(kasan_early_shadow_pud));
 			pud = pud_offset(p4d, addr);
 			pud_populate(&init_mm, pud,
@@ -273,7 +273,7 @@ int __ref kasan_populate_early_shadow(const void *shadow_start,
 				if (!p)
 					return -ENOMEM;
 			} else {
-				pgd_populate(&init_mm, pgd,
+				pgd_populate_kernel(addr, pgd,
 					early_alloc(PAGE_SIZE, NUMA_NO_NODE));
 			}
 		}
diff --git a/mm/percpu.c b/mm/percpu.c
index b35494c8ede2..1615dc3b3af5 100644
--- a/mm/percpu.c
+++ b/mm/percpu.c
@@ -3134,13 +3134,13 @@ void __init __weak pcpu_populate_pte(unsigned long addr)
 
 	if (pgd_none(*pgd)) {
 		p4d = memblock_alloc_or_panic(P4D_TABLE_SIZE, P4D_TABLE_SIZE);
-		pgd_populate(&init_mm, pgd, p4d);
+		pgd_populate_kernel(addr, pgd, p4d);
 	}
 
 	p4d = p4d_offset(pgd, addr);
 	if (p4d_none(*p4d)) {
 		pud = memblock_alloc_or_panic(PUD_TABLE_SIZE, PUD_TABLE_SIZE);
-		p4d_populate(&init_mm, p4d, pud);
+		p4d_populate_kernel(addr, p4d, pud);
 	}
 
 	pud = pud_offset(p4d, addr);
diff --git a/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c b/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c
index fd2ab5118e13..e275310ac708 100644
--- a/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c
+++ b/mm/sparse-vmemmap.c
@@ -229,7 +229,7 @@ p4d_t * __meminit vmemmap_p4d_populate(pgd_t *pgd, unsigned long addr, int node)
 		if (!p)
 			return NULL;
 		pud_init(p);
-		p4d_populate(&init_mm, p4d, p);
+		p4d_populate_kernel(addr, p4d, p);
 	}
 	return p4d;
 }
@@ -241,7 +241,7 @@ pgd_t * __meminit vmemmap_pgd_populate(unsigned long addr, int node)
 		void *p = vmemmap_alloc_block_zero(PAGE_SIZE, node);
 		if (!p)
 			return NULL;
-		pgd_populate(&init_mm, pgd, p);
+		pgd_populate_kernel(addr, pgd, p);
 	}
 	return pgd;
 }
-- 
2.43.0

[PATCH v3 mm-hotfixes 3/5] x86/mm/64: define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK and arch_sync_kernel_mappings()

[Harry Yoo]

Define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK and arch_sync_kernel_mappings() to ensure
page tables are properly synchronized when calling p*d_populate_kernel().
It is inteneded to synchronize page tables via pgd_pouplate_kernel() when
5-level paging is in use and via p4d_pouplate_kernel() when 4-level paging
is used.

This fixes intermittent boot failures on systems using 4-level paging
and a large amount of persistent memory:

  BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffe70000000034
  #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
  #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page
  PGD 0 P4D 0
  Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI
  RIP: 0010:__init_single_page+0x9/0x6d
  Call Trace:
   <TASK>
   __init_zone_device_page+0x17/0x5d
   memmap_init_zone_device+0x154/0x1bb
   pagemap_range+0x2e0/0x40f
   memremap_pages+0x10b/0x2f0
   devm_memremap_pages+0x1e/0x60
   dev_dax_probe+0xce/0x2ec [device_dax]
   dax_bus_probe+0x6d/0xc9
   [... snip ...]
   </TASK>

It also fixes a crash in vmemmap_set_pmd() caused by accessing vmemmap
before sync_global_pgds() [1]:

  BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffeb3ff1200000
  #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
  #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page
  PGD 0 P4D 0
  Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
  Tainted: [W]=WARN
  RIP: 0010:vmemmap_set_pmd+0xff/0x230
   <TASK>
   vmemmap_populate_hugepages+0x176/0x180
   vmemmap_populate+0x34/0x80
   __populate_section_memmap+0x41/0x90
   sparse_add_section+0x121/0x3e0
   __add_pages+0xba/0x150
   add_pages+0x1d/0x70
   memremap_pages+0x3dc/0x810
   devm_memremap_pages+0x1c/0x60
   xe_devm_add+0x8b/0x100 [xe]
   xe_tile_init_noalloc+0x6a/0x70 [xe]
   xe_device_probe+0x48c/0x740 [xe]
   [... snip ...]

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Fixes: 8d400913c231 ("x86/vmemmap: handle unpopulated sub-pmd ranges")
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20250311114420.240341-1-gwan-gyeong.mun@intel.com [1]
Suggested-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Harry Yoo <harry.yoo@oracle.com>
---
 arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_64_types.h | 3 +++
 arch/x86/mm/init_64.c                   | 5 +++++
 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+)

diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_64_types.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_64_types.h
index 4604f924d8b8..7eb61ef6a185 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_64_types.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_64_types.h
@@ -36,6 +36,9 @@ static inline bool pgtable_l5_enabled(void)
 #define pgtable_l5_enabled() cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_LA57)
 #endif /* USE_EARLY_PGTABLE_L5 */
 
+#define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK \
+	(pgtable_l5_enabled() ? PGTBL_PGD_MODIFIED : PGTBL_P4D_MODIFIED)
+
 extern unsigned int pgdir_shift;
 extern unsigned int ptrs_per_p4d;
 
diff --git a/arch/x86/mm/init_64.c b/arch/x86/mm/init_64.c
index fdb6cab524f0..3800479022e4 100644
--- a/arch/x86/mm/init_64.c
+++ b/arch/x86/mm/init_64.c
@@ -223,6 +223,11 @@ static void sync_global_pgds(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
 		sync_global_pgds_l4(start, end);
 }
 
+void arch_sync_kernel_mappings(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
+{
+	sync_global_pgds(start, end);
+}
+
 /*
  * NOTE: This function is marked __ref because it calls __init function
  * (alloc_bootmem_pages). It's safe to do it ONLY when after_bootmem == 0.
-- 
2.43.0

Re: [PATCH v3 mm-hotfixes 2/5] mm: introduce and use {pgd,p4d}_populate_kernel()

[Harry Yoo]

Adding some comment after looking at a kernel test robot report [1]
that seems to be rejected by linux-mm.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/oe-kbuild-all/202507290917.T24WIcvt-lkp@intel.com

I will post the next version with it fixed and including only first
three patches that will be backported to -stable. (and post last 2
patches as a follow-up after that)

On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 10:21:03AM +0900, Harry Yoo wrote:
> Introduce and use {pgd,p4d}_populate_kernel() in core MM code when
> populating PGD and P4D entries for the kernel address space.
> These helpers ensure proper synchronization of page tables when
> updating the kernel portion of top-level page tables.
> 
> Until now, the kernel has relied on each architecture to handle
> synchronization of top-level page tables in an ad-hoc manner.
> For example, see commit 9b861528a801 ("x86-64, mem: Update all PGDs for
> direct mapping and vmemmap mapping changes").
> 
> However, this approach has proven fragile for following reasons:
> 
>   1) It is easy to forget to perform the necessary page table
>      synchronization when introducing new changes.
>      For instance, commit 4917f55b4ef9 ("mm/sparse-vmemmap: improve memory
>      savings for compound devmaps") overlooked the need to synchronize
>      page tables for the vmemmap area.
> 
>   2) It is also easy to overlook that the vmemmap and direct mapping areas
>      must not be accessed before explicit page table synchronization.
>      For example, commit 8d400913c231 ("x86/vmemmap: handle unpopulated
>      sub-pmd ranges")) caused crashes by accessing the vmemmap area
>      before calling sync_global_pgds().
> 
> To address this, as suggested by Dave Hansen, introduce _kernel() variants
> of the page table population helpers, which invoke architecture-specific
> hooks to properly synchronize page tables.
> 
> They reuse existing infrastructure for vmalloc and ioremap.
> Synchronization requirements are determined by ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK,
> and the actual synchronization is performed by arch_sync_kernel_mappings().
> 
> This change currently targets only x86_64, so only PGD and P4D level
> helpers are introduced. In theory, PUD and PMD level helpers can be added
> later if needed by other architectures.
> 
> Currently this is a no-op, since no architecture sets
> PGTBL_{PGD,P4D}_MODIFIED in ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK.
> 
> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
> Suggested-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
> Signed-off-by: Harry Yoo <harry.yoo@oracle.com>
> ---
>  include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h | 16 ++++++++++++++++
>  include/linux/pgtable.h       |  4 ++--
>  mm/kasan/init.c               | 10 +++++-----
>  mm/percpu.c                   |  4 ++--
>  mm/sparse-vmemmap.c           |  4 ++--
>  5 files changed, 27 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h b/include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h
> index 3c8ec3bfea44..fc0ab8eed5a6 100644
> --- a/include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h
> +++ b/include/asm-generic/pgalloc.h
> @@ -4,6 +4,8 @@
>  
>  #ifdef CONFIG_MMU
>  
> +#include <linux/pgtable.h>
> +
>  #define GFP_PGTABLE_KERNEL	(GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_ZERO)
>  #define GFP_PGTABLE_USER	(GFP_PGTABLE_KERNEL | __GFP_ACCOUNT)
>  
> @@ -296,6 +298,20 @@ static inline void pgd_free(struct mm_struct *mm, pgd_t *pgd)
>  }
>  #endif
>  
> +#define pgd_populate_kernel(addr, pgd, p4d)			\
> +do {								\
> +	pgd_populate(&init_mm, pgd, p4d);			\
> +	if (ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK & PGTBL_PGD_MODIFIED)	\
> +		arch_sync_kernel_mappings(addr, addr);		\
> +} while (0)
> +
> +#define p4d_populate_kernel(addr, p4d, pud)			\
> +do {								\
> +	p4d_populate(&init_mm, p4d, pud);			\
> +	if (ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK & PGTBL_P4D_MODIFIED)	\
> +		arch_sync_kernel_mappings(addr, addr);		\
> +} while (0)
> +
>  #endif /* CONFIG_MMU */

The report [1] complains that p*d_populate_kernel() is not defined:

   mm/percpu.c: In function 'pcpu_populate_pte':
>> mm/percpu.c:3137:17: error: implicit declaration of function 'pgd_populate_kernel'; did you mean 'pmd_populate_kernel'? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
    3137 |                 pgd_populate_kernel(addr, pgd, p4d);
         |                 ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         |                 pmd_populate_kernel
>> mm/percpu.c:3143:17: error: implicit declaration of function 'p4d_populate_kernel'; did you mean 'pmd_populate_kernel'? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
    3143 |                 p4d_populate_kernel(addr, p4d, pud);
         |                 ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         |                 pmd_populate_kernel
--
   mm/sparse-vmemmap.c: In function 'vmemmap_p4d_populate':
>> mm/sparse-vmemmap.c:232:17: error: implicit declaration of function 'p4d_populate_kernel'; did you mean 'pmd_populate_kernel'? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
     232 |                 p4d_populate_kernel(addr, p4d, p);
         |                 ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         |                 pmd_populate_kernel
   mm/sparse-vmemmap.c: In function 'vmemmap_pgd_populate':
>> mm/sparse-vmemmap.c:244:17: error: implicit declaration of function 'pgd_populate_kernel'; did you mean 'pmd_populate_kernel'? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
     244 |                 pgd_populate_kernel(addr, pgd, p);
         |                 ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         |                 pmd_populate_kernel


I had incorrectly assumed that asm/pgalloc.h in all architecture would
include asm-generic/pgalloc.h. That's true for most architectures,
but a few architectures (sparc, powerpc, s390) don't do that.

As it turns out the assumption isn't valid on all arches, I think the
right thing to do now is to introduce include/linux/pgalloc.h and put
these helpers there, and include it from common code.

-- 
Cheers,
Harry / Hyeonggon