[PATCH for 7.4-rc2+ 6/7] mm/huge_memory: avoid transient none PMDs during lazyfree reclaim
From: Zi Yan
Date: Thu Oct 15 2026 - 15:15:57 EST
From: Kyle Zeng <kylebot@xxxxxxxxxx>
__discard_anon_folio_pmd_locked() clears and flushes a huge PMD before
checking whether the folio can be discarded. If the folio was redirtied
or has unexpected references, it restores the original PMD. Reclaim holds
the PMD lock and the anon_vma read lock, but not the owning mmap_lock.
Both zap_pmd_range() and mremap's get_old_pmd() can skip a none PMD
without taking its lock. A concurrent munmap() or whole-VMA
MREMAP_DONTUNMAP can therefore miss the PMD and later unlink the source
VMA from its anon_vma, leaving a restored mapping behind. The anon_vma
write lock taken by unlink_anon_vmas() waits for reclaim to finish, but
does not repeat the skipped page-table walk. Once the remaining VMA
links are removed, the folio's positive mapcount no longer guarantees a
live anon_vma. Racing lazyfree reclaim against MREMAP_DONTUNMAP as an
unprivileged user reproduces a KASAN use-after-free in
folio_lock_anon_vma_read().
Use pmdp_invalidate() to keep a recognizable, non-none huge PMD while
the discard can still fail. Concurrent unmap and move operations then
have to synchronize on the PMD lock instead of skipping the mapping.
Clear the invalidated PMD only after the dirty and reference checks have
succeeded, before removing the rmap and withdrawing the deposited page
table. The full invalidation retains the TLB flush required for the
dirty and GUP-fast checks.
Note: this patch relies on the following patches to work correctly:
1. powerpc/book3s64/mm: don't count invalidated PMDs in page table check
2. riscv: mm: don't let GUP-fast follow invalidated THP PMDs
3. LoongArch: mm: don't let GUP-fast follow invalidated THP PMDs
4. s390/mm: always clear _SEGMENT_ENTRY_READ in pmdp_invalidate()
5. sparc64: mm: fix thp_pte_count accounting around pmdp_invalidate()
Assisted-by: LLM
Signed-off-by: Kyle Zeng <kylebot@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Zi Yan <ziy@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: David Hildenbrand <david@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: Lance Yang <lance.yang@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Zi Yan <ziy@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Liam R. Howlett" <liam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Nico Pache <nico.pache@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Dev Jain <dev.jain@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Barry Song <baohua@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Usama Arif <usama.arif@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Kiryl Shutsemau <kas@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: John Hubbard <jhubbard@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Peter Xu <peterx@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: linux-mm@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
---
mm/huge_memory.c | 5 +++--
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/mm/huge_memory.c b/mm/huge_memory.c
index bd44d58e86845..39d56b5032d59 100644
--- a/mm/huge_memory.c
+++ b/mm/huge_memory.c
@@ -3571,11 +3571,11 @@ static bool __discard_anon_folio_pmd_locked(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
return false;
}
- orig_pmd = pmdp_huge_clear_flush(vma, addr, pmdp);
+ orig_pmd = pmdp_invalidate(vma, addr, pmdp);
/*
* Syncing against concurrent GUP-fast:
- * - clear PMD; barrier; read refcount
+ * - invalidate PMD; barrier; read refcount
* - inc refcount; barrier; read PMD
*/
smp_mb();
@@ -3609,6 +3609,7 @@ static bool __discard_anon_folio_pmd_locked(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
return false;
}
+ pmdp_huge_get_and_clear(mm, addr, pmdp);
folio_remove_rmap_pmd(folio, pmd_page(orig_pmd), vma);
zap_deposited_table(mm, pmdp);
add_mm_counter(mm, MM_ANONPAGES, -HPAGE_PMD_NR);
--
2.53.0