On Thu 29-09-22 16:33:27, Dan Williams wrote: > Jan Kara wrote: > > On Mon 26-09-22 09:54:07, Dave Chinner wrote: > > > > I'd be more worried about stuff like vmsplice() that can add file pages > > > > into pipe without holding inode alive in any way and keeping them there for > > > > arbitrarily long time. Didn't we want to add FOLL_LONGTERM to gup executed > > > > from vmsplice() to avoid issues like this? > > > > > > Yes, ISTR that was part of the plan - use FOLL_LONGTERM to ensure > > > FSDAX can't run operations that pin pages but don't take fs > > > references. I think that's how we prevented RDMA users from pinning > > > FSDAX direct mapped storage media in this way. It does not, however, > > > prevent the above "short term" GUP UAF situation from occurring. > > > > If what I wrote above is correct, then I understand and agree. > > > > > > I agree that freeing VMA while there are pinned pages is ... inconvenient. > > > > But that is just how gup works since the beginning - the moment you have > > > > struct page reference, you completely forget about the mapping you've used > > > > to get to the page. So anything can happen with the mapping after that > > > > moment. And in case of pages mapped by multiple processes I can easily see > > > > that one of the processes decides to unmap the page (and it may well be > > > > that was the initial process that acquired page references) while others > > > > still keep accessing the page using page references stored in some internal > > > > structure (RDMA anyone?). > > > > > > Yup, and this is why RDMA on FSDAX using this method of pinning pages > > > will end up corrupting data and filesystems, hence FOLL_LONGTERM > > > protecting against most of these situations from even arising. But > > > that's that workaround, not a long term solution that allows RDMA to > > > be run on FSDAX managed storage media. > > > > > > I said on #xfs a few days ago: > > > > > > [23/9/22 10:23] * dchinner is getting deja vu over this latest round > > > of "dax mappings don't pin the filesystem objects that own the > > > storage media being mapped" > > > > > > And I'm getting that feeling again right now... > > > > > > > I think it will be rather difficult to come up > > > > with some scheme keeping VMA alive while there are pages pinned without > > > > regressing userspace which over the years became very much tailored to the > > > > peculiar gup behavior. > > > > > > Perhaps all we should do is add a page flag for fsdax mapped pages > > > that says GUP must pin the VMA, so only mapped pages that fall into > > > this category take the perf penalty of VMA management. > > > > Possibly. But my concern with VMA pinning was not only about performance > > but also about applications relying on being able to unmap pages that are > > currently pinned. At least from some processes one of which may be the one > > doing the original pinning. But yeah, the fact that FOLL_LONGTERM is > > forbidden with DAX somewhat restricts the insanity we have to deal with. So > > maybe pinning the VMA for DAX mappings might actually be a workable > > solution. > > As far as I can see, VMAs are not currently reference counted they are > just added / deleted from an mm_struct, and nothing guarantees > mapping_mapped() stays true while a page is pinned. I agree this solution requires quite some work. But I wanted to say that in principle it would be a logically consistent and technically not that difficult solution. > I like Dave's mental model that the inode is the arbiter for the page, > and the arbiter is not allowed to go out of scope before asserting that > everything it granted previously has been returned. > > write_inode_now() unconditionally invokes dax_writeback_mapping_range() > when the inode is committed to going out of scope. write_inode_now() is > allowed to sleep until all dirty mapping entries are written back. I see > nothing wrong with additionally checking for entries with elevated page > reference counts and doing a: > > __wait_var_event(page, dax_page_idle(page)); > > Since the inode is out of scope there should be no concerns with racing > new 0 -> 1 page->_refcount transitions. Just wait for transient page > pins to finally drain to zero which should already be on the order of > the wait time to complete synchrounous writeback in the dirty inode > case. I agree this is doable but there's the nasty sideeffect that inode reclaim may block for abitrary time waiting for page pinning. If the application that has pinned the page requires __GFP_FS memory allocation to get to a point where it releases the page, we even have a deadlock possibility. So it's better than the UAF issue but still not ideal. Honza -- Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxxx> SUSE Labs, CR