From: Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@xxxxxxxxxx> This patch has been added to the 3.12 stable tree. If you have any objections, please let us know. =============== commit ad33bb04b2a6cee6c1f99fabb15cddbf93ff0433 upstream. pmd_trans_unstable()/pmd_none_or_trans_huge_or_clear_bad() were introduced to locklessy (but atomically) detect when a pmd is a regular (stable) pmd or when the pmd is unstable and can infinitely transition from pmd_none() and pmd_trans_huge() from under us, while only holding the mmap_sem for reading (for writing not). While holding the mmap_sem only for reading, MADV_DONTNEED can run from under us and so before we can assume the pmd to be a regular stable pmd we need to compare it against pmd_none() and pmd_trans_huge() in an atomic way, with pmd_trans_unstable(). The old pmd_trans_huge() left a tiny window for a race. Useful applications are unlikely to notice the difference as doing MADV_DONTNEED concurrently with a page fault would lead to undefined behavior. [js] 3.12 backport: no pmd_devmap in 3.12 yet. [akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: tidy up comment grammar/layout] Signed-off-by: Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@xxxxxxxxxx> Reported-by: Kirill A. Shutemov <kirill.shutemov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Jiri Slaby <jslaby@xxxxxxx> --- mm/memory.c | 14 ++++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/mm/memory.c b/mm/memory.c index d0d84c36cd5c..61926356c09a 100644 --- a/mm/memory.c +++ b/mm/memory.c @@ -3814,8 +3814,18 @@ static int __handle_mm_fault(struct mm_struct *mm, struct vm_area_struct *vma, if (unlikely(pmd_none(*pmd)) && unlikely(__pte_alloc(mm, vma, pmd, address))) return VM_FAULT_OOM; - /* if an huge pmd materialized from under us just retry later */ - if (unlikely(pmd_trans_huge(*pmd))) + /* + * If a huge pmd materialized under us just retry later. Use + * pmd_trans_unstable() instead of pmd_trans_huge() to ensure the pmd + * didn't become pmd_trans_huge under us and then back to pmd_none, as + * a result of MADV_DONTNEED running immediately after a huge pmd fault + * in a different thread of this mm, in turn leading to a misleading + * pmd_trans_huge() retval. All we have to ensure is that it is a + * regular pmd that we can walk with pte_offset_map() and we can do that + * through an atomic read in C, which is what pmd_trans_unstable() + * provides. + */ + if (unlikely(pmd_trans_unstable(pmd))) return 0; /* * A regular pmd is established and it can't morph into a huge pmd -- 2.9.2 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html