Re: [RFC PATCH 1/3] mm: introduce new .mmap_proto() f_op callback

[Jann Horn]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2025 at 9:54 PM Lorenzo Stoakes
<lorenzo.stoakes@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Provide a means by which drivers can specify which fields of those
> permitted to be changed should be altered to prior to mmap()'ing a
> range (which may either result from a merge or from mapping an entirely new
> VMA).
>
> Doing so is substantially safer than the existing .mmap() calback which
> provides unrestricted access to the part-constructed VMA and permits
> drivers and file systems to do 'creative' things which makes it hard to
> reason about the state of the VMA after the function returns.
>
> The existing .mmap() callback's freedom has caused a great deal of issues,
> especially in error handling, as unwinding the mmap() state has proven to
> be non-trivial and caused significant issues in the past, for instance
> those addressed in commit 5de195060b2e ("mm: resolve faulty mmap_region()
> error path behaviour").
>
> It also necessitates a second attempt at merge once the .mmap() callback
> has completed, which has caused issues in the past, is awkward, adds
> overhead and is difficult to reason about.
>
> The .mmap_proto() callback eliminates this requirement, as we can update
> fields prior to even attempting the first merge. It is safer, as we heavily
> restrict what can actually be modified, and being invoked very early in the
> mmap() process, error handling can be performed safely with very little
> unwinding of state required.

I wonder if this requires adjustments to the existing users of
call_mmap() that use call_mmap() for forwarding mmap operations to
some kind of backing file. In particular fuse_passthrough_mmap(),
which I think can operate on fairly arbitrary user-supplied backing
files (for context, I think fuse_backing_open() allows root to just
provide an fd to be used as backing file).

I guess the easiest approach would be to add bailouts to those if an
->mmap_proto handler exists for now, and revisit this if we ever want
to use ->mmap_proto for more normal types of files?