[PATCH v8 4/6] mm/memory-failure: add panic option for unrecoverable pages

From: Breno Leitao

Date: Wed May 27 2026 - 10:14:56 EST


Add a sysctl panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure (disabled by
default) that triggers a kernel panic when memory_failure()
encounters pages that cannot be recovered. This provides a clean
crash with useful debug information rather than allowing silent
data corruption or a delayed crash at an unrelated code path.

Panic eligibility is intentionally narrow: only MF_MSG_KERNEL with
result == MF_IGNORED panics. After the previous patch, MF_MSG_KERNEL
covers PG_reserved pages and the kernel-owned pages promoted from
get_hwpoison_page() via -ENOTRECOVERABLE (slab, page tables,
large-kmalloc).

All other action types are excluded:

- MF_MSG_GET_HWPOISON and MF_MSG_KERNEL_HIGH_ORDER can be reached by
transient refcount races with the page allocator (an in-flight buddy
allocation has refcount 0 and is no longer on the buddy free list,
briefly), and panicking on them would risk killing the box for what
is actually a recoverable userspace page.

- MF_MSG_UNKNOWN means identify_page_state() could not classify the
page; that is precisely the wrong basis for a panic decision.

Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
mm/memory-failure.c | 23 +++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 23 insertions(+)

diff --git a/mm/memory-failure.c b/mm/memory-failure.c
index 14c0a958638c..dcd53dbc6aec 100644
--- a/mm/memory-failure.c
+++ b/mm/memory-failure.c
@@ -74,6 +74,8 @@ static int sysctl_memory_failure_recovery __read_mostly = 1;

static int sysctl_enable_soft_offline __read_mostly = 1;

+static int sysctl_panic_on_unrecoverable_mf __read_mostly;
+
atomic_long_t num_poisoned_pages __read_mostly = ATOMIC_LONG_INIT(0);

static bool hw_memory_failure __read_mostly = false;
@@ -155,6 +157,15 @@ static const struct ctl_table memory_failure_table[] = {
.proc_handler = proc_dointvec_minmax,
.extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO,
.extra2 = SYSCTL_ONE,
+ },
+ {
+ .procname = "panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure",
+ .data = &sysctl_panic_on_unrecoverable_mf,
+ .maxlen = sizeof(sysctl_panic_on_unrecoverable_mf),
+ .mode = 0644,
+ .proc_handler = proc_dointvec_minmax,
+ .extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO,
+ .extra2 = SYSCTL_ONE,
}
};

@@ -1255,6 +1266,15 @@ static void update_per_node_mf_stats(unsigned long pfn,
++mf_stats->total;
}

+static bool panic_on_unrecoverable_mf(enum mf_action_page_type type,
+ enum mf_result result)
+{
+ if (!sysctl_panic_on_unrecoverable_mf || result != MF_IGNORED)
+ return false;
+
+ return type == MF_MSG_KERNEL;
+}
+
/*
* "Dirty/Clean" indication is not 100% accurate due to the possibility of
* setting PG_dirty outside page lock. See also comment above set_page_dirty().
@@ -1272,6 +1292,9 @@ static int action_result(unsigned long pfn, enum mf_action_page_type type,
pr_err("%#lx: recovery action for %s: %s\n",
pfn, action_page_types[type], action_name[result]);

+ if (panic_on_unrecoverable_mf(type, result))
+ panic("Memory failure: %#lx: unrecoverable page", pfn);
+
return (result == MF_RECOVERED || result == MF_DELAYED) ? 0 : -EBUSY;
}


--
2.54.0