__split_huge_pmd_locked() must check if the cleared huge pmd was dirty, and propagate that to PageDirty: otherwise, data may be lost when a huge tmpfs page is modified then split then reclaimed. How has this taken so long to be noticed? Because there was no problem when the huge page is written by a write system call (shmem_write_end() calls set_page_dirty()), nor when the page is allocated for a write fault (fault_dirty_shared_page() calls set_page_dirty()); but when allocated for a read fault (which MAP_POPULATE simulates), no set_page_dirty(). Fixes: d21b9e57c74c ("thp: handle file pages in split_huge_pmd()") Reported-by: Ashwin Chaugule <ashwinch@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hughd@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Huang, Ying" <ying.huang@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Yang Shi <yang.shi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> # v4.8+ --- mm/huge_memory.c | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) --- 4.18-rc4/mm/huge_memory.c 2018-06-16 18:48:22.029173363 -0700 +++ linux/mm/huge_memory.c 2018-07-10 20:11:29.991011603 -0700 @@ -2084,6 +2084,8 @@ static void __split_huge_pmd_locked(stru if (vma_is_dax(vma)) return; page = pmd_page(_pmd); + if (!PageDirty(page) && pmd_dirty(_pmd)) + set_page_dirty(page); if (!PageReferenced(page) && pmd_young(_pmd)) SetPageReferenced(page); page_remove_rmap(page, true);