Re: [PATCH 1/2] mm: protect free_pgtables with mmap_lock write lock in exit_mmap

From: Suren Baghdasaryan
Date: Wed Nov 24 2021 - 10:25:56 EST


On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 4:20 AM Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Tue 23-11-21 09:56:41, Suren Baghdasaryan wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 5:19 AM Matthew Wilcox <willy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 01:57:14PM -0800, Suren Baghdasaryan wrote:
> > > > @@ -3170,6 +3172,7 @@ void exit_mmap(struct mm_struct *mm)
> > > > unmap_vmas(&tlb, vma, 0, -1);
> > > > free_pgtables(&tlb, vma, FIRST_USER_ADDRESS, USER_PGTABLES_CEILING);
> > > > tlb_finish_mmu(&tlb);
> > > > + mmap_write_unlock(mm);
> > > >
> > > > /*
> > > > * Walk the list again, actually closing and freeing it,
> > >
> > > Is there a reason to unlock here instead of after the remove_vma loop?
> > > We'll need the mmap sem held during that loop when VMAs are stored in
> > > the maple tree.
> >
> > I didn't realize remove_vma() would need to be protected as well. I
> > think I can move mmap_write_unlock down to cover the last walk too
> > with no impact.
> > Does anyone know if there was any specific reason to perform that last
> > walk with no locks held (as the comment states)? I can track that
> > comment back to Linux-2.6.12-rc2 merge with no earlier history, so not
> > sure if it's critical not to hold any locks at this point. Seems to me
> > it's ok to hold mmap_write_unlock but maybe I'm missing something?
>
> I suspect the primary reason was that neither fput (and callbacks
> invoked from it) nor vm_close would need to be very careful about
> interacting with mm locks. fput is async these days so it shouldn't be
> problematic. vm_ops->close doesn't have any real contract definition AFAIK
> but taking mmap_sem from those would be really suprising. They should be
> mostly destructing internal vma state and that shouldn't really require
> address space protection.

Thanks for clarification, Michal. I'll post an updated patch with
remove_vma() loop executed under mmap_write_lock protection.

> --
> Michal Hocko
> SUSE Labs