From: Catalin Marinas > Sent: 23 July 2020 11:19 > On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 08:37:27AM +0000, David Laight wrote: > > From: Catalin Marinas > > > Sent: 22 July 2020 17:54 > > > On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 01:14:21PM +0000, David Laight wrote: > > > > From: Catalin Marinas > > > > > Sent: 22 July 2020 12:37 > > > > > On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 12:34:11PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > > > > On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 12:28 PM Linus Torvalds > > > > > > <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > > > I think we should try to get rid of the exact semantics. > > > > > > > > > > > > Side note: I think one of the historical reasons for the exact > > > > > > semantics was that we used to do things like the mount option copying > > > > > > with a "copy_from_user()" iirc. > > > > > > > > > > > > And that could take a fault at the end of the stack etc, because > > > > > > "copy_mount_options()" is nasty and doesn't get a size, and just > > > > > > copies "up to 4kB" of data. > > > > > > > > > > > > It's a mistake in the interface, but it is what it is. But we've > > > > > > always handled the inexact count there anyway by originally doing byte > > > > > > accesses, and at some point you optimized it to just look at where > > > > > > page boundaries might be.. > > > > > > > > > > And we may have to change this again since, with arm64 MTE, the page > > > > > boundary check is insufficient: > > > > > > > > > > https://lore.kernel.org/linux-fsdevel/20200715170844.30064-25-catalin.marinas@xxxxxxx/ > > > > > > > > > > While currently the fault path is unlikely to trigger, with MTE in user > > > > > space it's a lot more likely since the buffer (e.g. a string) is > > > > > normally less than 4K and the adjacent addresses would have a different > > > > > colour. > > > > > > > > > > I looked (though briefly) into passing the copy_from_user() problem to > > > > > filesystems that would presumably know better how much to copy. In most > > > > > cases the options are string, so something like strncpy_from_user() > > > > > would work. For mount options as binary blobs (IIUC btrfs) maybe the fs > > > > > has a better way to figure out how much to copy. > > > > > > > > What about changing the mount code to loop calling get_user() > > > > to read aligned words until failure? > > > > Mount is fairly uncommon and the extra cost is probably small compared > > > > to the rest of doing a mount. > > > > > > Before commit 12efec560274 ("saner copy_mount_options()"), it was using > > > single-byte get_user(). That could have been optimised for aligned words > > > reading but I don't really think it's worth the hassle. Since the source > > > and destination don't have the same alignment and some architecture > > > don't support unaligned accesses (for storing to the kernel buffer), it > > > would just make this function unnecessarily complicated. > > > > It could do aligned words if the user buffer is aligned (it will be > > most of the time) and bytes otherwise. > > > > Or just fallback to a byte loop if the full 4k read fails. > > That's what I'm proposing here (needed for arm64 MTE): > > https://lore.kernel.org/linux-fsdevel/20200715170844.30064-25-catalin.marinas@xxxxxxx/ Seems not unreasonable... David - Registered Address Lakeside, Bramley Road, Mount Farm, Milton Keynes, MK1 1PT, UK Registration No: 1397386 (Wales)
