mm/Kconfig · 1d798ca3f16437c71ff63e36597ff07f9c12e4d6 · Kirill Smelkov / linux

mm: make compound_head() robust · 1d798ca3

Kirill A. Shutemov authored Nov 06, 2015

Hugh has pointed that compound_head() call can be unsafe in some
context. There's one example:

	CPU0					CPU1

isolate_migratepages_block()
  page_count()
    compound_head()
      !!PageTail() == true
					put_page()
					  tail->first_page = NULL
      head = tail->first_page
					alloc_pages(__GFP_COMP)
					   prep_compound_page()
					     tail->first_page = head
					     __SetPageTail(p);
      !!PageTail() == true
    <head == NULL dereferencing>

The race is pure theoretical. I don't it's possible to trigger it in
practice. But who knows.

We can fix the race by changing how encode PageTail() and compound_head()
within struct page to be able to update them in one shot.

The patch introduces page->compound_head into third double word block in
front of compound_dtor and compound_order. Bit 0 encodes PageTail() and
the rest bits are pointer to head page if bit zero is set.

The patch moves page->pmd_huge_pte out of word, just in case if an
architecture defines pgtabl...

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