On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 4:10 AM Qi Zheng <zhengqi.arch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> In the generic ptep_get_and_clear() implementation, it is just a simple
> combination of ptep_get() and pte_clear(). But for some architectures
> (such as x86 and arm64, etc), the hardware will modify the A/D bits of the
> page table entry, so the ptep_get_and_clear() needs to be overwritten
> and implemented as an atomic operation to avoid contention, which has a
> performance cost.
>
> The commit d283d422c6c4 ("x86: mm: add x86_64 support for page table
> check") adds the ptep_clear() on the x86, and makes it call
> ptep_get_and_clear() when CONFIG_PAGE_TABLE_CHECK is enabled. The page
> table check feature does not actually care about the A/D bits, so only
> ptep_get() + pte_clear() should be called. But considering that the page
> table check is a debug option, this should not have much of an impact.
>
> But then the commit de8c8e52836d ("mm: page_table_check: add hooks to
> public helpers") changed ptep_clear() to unconditionally call
> ptep_get_and_clear(), so that the CONFIG_PAGE_TABLE_CHECK check can be
> put into the page table check stubs (in include/linux/page_table_check.h).
> This also cause performance loss to the kernel without
> CONFIG_PAGE_TABLE_CHECK enabled, which doesn't make sense.
>
> Currently ptep_clear() is only used in debug code and in khugepaged
> collapse paths, which are fairly expensive. So the cost of an extra atomic
> RMW operation does not matter. But this may be used for other paths in the
> future. After all, for the present pte entry, we need to call ptep_clear()
> instead of pte_clear() to ensure that PAGE_TABLE_CHECK works properly.
>
> So to be more precise, just calling ptep_get() and pte_clear() in the
> ptep_clear().
>
> Signed-off-by: Qi Zheng <zhengqi.arch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> include/linux/pgtable.h | 5 ++++-
> 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/include/linux/pgtable.h b/include/linux/pgtable.h
> index adef9d6e9b1ba..e59decd22e1cb 100644
> --- a/include/linux/pgtable.h
> +++ b/include/linux/pgtable.h
> @@ -533,7 +533,10 @@ static inline void clear_young_dirty_ptes(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
> static inline void ptep_clear(struct mm_struct *mm, unsigned long addr,
> pte_t *ptep)
> {
> - ptep_get_and_clear(mm, addr, ptep);
> + pte_t pte = ptep_get(ptep);
> +
> + pte_clear(mm, addr, ptep);
> + page_table_check_pte_clear(mm, pte);
> }
Reviewed-by: Pasha Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@xxxxxxxxxx>
Thanks,
Pasha
