Before commit c10d38cc ("mm, swap: bounds check swap_info array
accesses to avoid NULL derefs"), the typical code to reference the
swap_info[] is as follows,

  type = swp_type(swp_entry);
  if (type >= nr_swapfiles)
          /* handle invalid swp_entry */;
  p = swap_info[type];
  /* access fields of *p.  OOPS! p may be NULL! */

Because the ordering isn't guaranteed, it's possible that swap_info[type]
is read before "nr_swapfiles".  And that may result in NULL pointer
dereference.

So after commit c10d38cc, the code becomes,

  struct swap_info_struct *swap_type_to_swap_info(int type)
  {
	  if (type >= READ_ONCE(nr_swapfiles))
		  return NULL;
	  smp_rmb();
	  return READ_ONCE(swap_info[type]);
  }

  /* users */
  type = swp_type(swp_entry);
  p = swap_type_to_swap_info(type);
  if (!p)
	  /* handle invalid swp_entry */;
  /* dereference p */

Where the value of swap_info[type] (that is, "p") is checked to be
non-zero before being dereferenced.  So, the NULL deferencing becomes
impossible even if "nr_swapfiles" is read after swap_info[type].
Therefore, the "smp_rmb()" becomes unnecessary.

And, we don't even need to read "nr_swapfiles" here.  Because the non-zero
checking for "p" is sufficient.  We just need to make sure we will not
access out of the boundary of the array.  With the change, nr_swapfiles
will only be accessed with swap_lock held, except in
swapcache_free_entries().  Where the absolute correctness of the value
isn't needed, as described in the comments.

We still need to guarantee swap_info[type] is read before being
dereferenced.  That can be satisfied via the data dependency ordering
enforced by READ_ONCE(swap_info[type]).  This needs to be paired with
proper write barriers.  So smp_store_release() is used in
alloc_swap_info() to guarantee the fields of *swap_info[type] is
initialized before swap_info[type] itself being written.  Note that the
fields of *swap_info[type] is initialized to be 0 via kvzalloc() firstly.
The assignment and deferencing of swap_info[type] is like
rcu_assign_pointer() and rcu_dereference().

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210520073301.1676294-1-ying.huang@intel.comSigned-off-by: "Huang, Ying" <ying.huang@intel.com>
Cc: Daniel Jordan <daniel.m.jordan@oracle.com>
Cc: Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com>
Cc: Andrea Parri <andrea.parri@amarulasolutions.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Omar Sandoval <osandov@fb.com>
Cc: Paul McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
Cc: Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com>
Cc: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>