Re: [PATCH] mm: move mask update out of the atomic context

From: David Hildenbrand
Date: Tue Jun 24 2025 - 05:44:05 EST


On 24.06.25 11:37, Alexander Gordeev wrote:
On Mon, Jun 23, 2025 at 09:45:34PM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
...
Let's ask the real questions: who checks PGTBL_PTE_MODIFIED?

I see

if (mask & ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK)
arch_sync_kernel_mappings(start, start + size);

And then

arch/arm/include/asm/page.h:#define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK PGTBL_PMD_MODIFIED
arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable-2level_types.h:#define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK PGTBL_PMD_MODIFIED
arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable-3level_types.h:#define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK PGTBL_PMD_MODIFIED


Which makes me wonder why we need PGTBL_PTE_MODIFIED at all? Is there some other check I am missing?

(same question regarding everything excepy PGTBL_PMD_MODIFIED, because that actually seems to be used)

AFAICT it was thought as architecture-specific:

/*
* Architectures can set this mask to a combination of PGTBL_P?D_MODIFIED values
* and let generic vmalloc and ioremap code know when arch_sync_kernel_mappings()
* needs to be called.
*/
#ifndef ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK
#define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK 0
#endif

Not sure if that needs to be addressed at all.

Okay, if there are no users of PGTBL_PTE_MODIFIED we could just ... remove it. Dead code.

--
Cheers,

David / dhildenb