Re: [PATCH V2] mm/ptdump: Take the memory hotplug lock inside ptdump_walk_pgd()

[Alexander Gordeev]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2025 at 10:54:27AM +0530, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
> Memory hot remove unmaps and tears down various kernel page table regions
> as required. The ptdump code can race with concurrent modifications of the
> kernel page tables. When leaf entries are modified concurrently, the dump
> code may log stale or inconsistent information for a VA range, but this is
> otherwise not harmful.
> 
> But when intermediate levels of kernel page table are freed, the dump code
> will continue to use memory that has been freed and potentially reallocated
> for another purpose. In such cases, the ptdump code may dereference bogus
> addresses, leading to a number of potential problems.
> 
> To avoid the above mentioned race condition, platforms such as arm64, riscv
> and s390 take memory hotplug lock, while dumping kernel page table via the
> sysfs interface /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables.
> 
> Similar race condition exists while checking for pages that might have been
> marked W+X via /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables/check_wx_pages which in
> turn calls ptdump_check_wx(). Instead of solving this race condition again,
> let's just move the memory hotplug lock inside generic ptdump_check_wx()
> which will benefit both the scenarios.
> 
> Drop get_online_mems() and put_online_mems() combination from all existing
> platform ptdump code paths.
> 
> Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@xxxxxxx>
> Cc: Will Deacon <will@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@xxxxxxx>
> Cc: Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Alexander Gordeev <agordeev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Gerald Schaefer <gerald.schaefer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Heiko Carstens <hca@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Vasily Gorbik <gor@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Christian Borntraeger <borntraeger@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Sven Schnelle <svens@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> CC: linux-arm-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: linux-riscv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: linux-s390@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: linux-mm@xxxxxxxxx
> Signed-off-by: Anshuman Khandual <anshuman.khandual@xxxxxxx>
> ---
> This patch applies on v6.16-rc2 and has been tested on arm64. Besides it
> builds on riscv, s390, x86 and powerpc as well. But should the following
> fixes tag from V1 also needs to be around as well ?
> 
> Fixes: bbd6ec605c0f ("arm64/mm: Enable memory hot remove")
> 
> Changes in V2:
> 
> - Moved [get|put]_online_mems() inside generic ptdump_walk_pgd()
> 
> Changes in V1:
> 
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250609041214.285664-1-anshuman.khandual@xxxxxxx/
> 
>  arch/arm64/mm/ptdump_debugfs.c | 3 ---
>  arch/riscv/mm/ptdump.c         | 3 ---
>  arch/s390/mm/dump_pagetables.c | 2 --
>  mm/ptdump.c                    | 2 ++
>  4 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

Acked-by: Alexander Gordeev <agordeev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> # s390