• Dan Williams's avatar
    dax: require 'struct page' by default for filesystem dax · 569d0365
    Dan Williams authored
    If a dax buffer from a device that does not map pages is passed to
    read(2) or write(2) as a target for direct-I/O it triggers SIGBUS. If
    gdb attempts to examine the contents of a dax buffer from a device that
    does not map pages it triggers SIGBUS. If fork(2) is called on a process
    with a dax mapping from a device that does not map pages it triggers
    SIGBUS. 'struct page' is required otherwise several kernel code paths
    break in surprising ways. Disable filesystem-dax on devices that do not
    map pages.
    
    In addition to needing pfn_to_page() to be valid we also require devmap
    pages.  We need this to detect dax pages in the get_user_pages_fast()
    path and so that we can stop managing the VM_MIXEDMAP flag. For DAX
    drivers that have not supported get_user_pages() to date we allow them
    to opt-in to supporting DAX with the CONFIG_FS_DAX_LIMITED configuration
    option which requires ->direct_access() to return pfn_t_special() pfns.
    This leaves DAX support in brd disabled and scheduled for removal.
    
    Note that when the initial dax support was being merged a few years back
    there was concern that struct page was unsuitable for use with next
    generation persistent memory devices. The theoretical concern was that
    struct page access, being such a hotly used data structure in the
    kernel, would lead to media wear out. While that was a reasonable
    conservative starting position it has not held true in practice. We have
    long since committed to using devm_memremap_pages() to support higher
    order kernel functionality that needs get_user_pages() and
    pfn_to_page().
    
    
    Cc: Jeff Moyer <jmoyer@redhat.com>
    Cc: Ross Zwisler <ross.zwisler@linux.intel.com>
    Cc: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>
    Cc: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
    Cc: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>
    Cc: Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@de.ibm.com>
    Cc: Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarJan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarChristoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarGerald Schaefer <gerald.schaefer@de.ibm.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarDan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
    569d0365
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