[PATCH] x86/mm: Disable hugetlb page table sharing on non-PAE 32-bit

From: Jann Horn
Date: Mon Jun 30 2025 - 15:12:30 EST


Only select ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE if hugetlb page table sharing is
actually possible; page table sharing requires at least three levels,
because it involves shared references to PMD tables.

Having ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE enabled on non-PAE 32-bit X86 (which
has 2-level paging) became particularly problematic after commit
59d9094df3d7 ("mm: hugetlb: independent PMD page table shared count"),
since that changes `struct ptdesc` such that the `pt_mm` (for PGDs) and
the `pt_share_count` (for PMDs) share the same union storage - and with
2-level paging, PMDs are PGDs.

(For comparison, arm64 also gates ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE on the
configuration of page tables such that it is never enabled with 2-level
paging.)

Reported-by: Vitaly Chikunov <vt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/r/srhpjxlqfna67blvma5frmy3aa@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Fixes: cfe28c5d63d8 ("x86: mm: Remove x86 version of huge_pmd_share.")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Jann Horn <jannh@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/Kconfig | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/Kconfig b/arch/x86/Kconfig
index 71019b3b54ea..917f523b994b 100644
--- a/arch/x86/Kconfig
+++ b/arch/x86/Kconfig
@@ -147,7 +147,7 @@ config X86
select ARCH_WANTS_DYNAMIC_TASK_STRUCT
select ARCH_WANTS_NO_INSTR
select ARCH_WANT_GENERAL_HUGETLB
- select ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE
+ select ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE if PGTABLE_LEVELS > 2
select ARCH_WANT_LD_ORPHAN_WARN
select ARCH_WANT_OPTIMIZE_DAX_VMEMMAP if X86_64
select ARCH_WANT_OPTIMIZE_HUGETLB_VMEMMAP if X86_64

---
base-commit: d0b3b7b22dfa1f4b515fd3a295b3fd958f9e81af
change-id: 20250630-x86-2level-hugetlb-b1d8feb255ce

--
Jann Horn <jannh@xxxxxxxxxx>