mm, swap: remove unnecessary smp_rmb() in swap_type_to_swap_info()
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>
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