Re: [PATCH v1] mm: swap: Fix race between free_swap_and_cache() and swapoff()

[David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>]

On 05.03.24 17:33, Ryan Roberts wrote:
> On 05/03/2024 15:50, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> On 05.03.24 16:13, Ryan Roberts wrote:
>>> There was previously a theoretical window where swapoff() could run and
>>> teardown a swap_info_struct while a call to free_swap_and_cache() was
>>> running in another thread. This could cause, amongst other bad
>>> possibilities, swap_page_trans_huge_swapped() (called by
>>> free_swap_and_cache()) to access the freed memory for swap_map.
>>>
>>> This is a theoretical problem and I haven't been able to provoke it from
>>> a test case. But there has been agreement based on code review that this
>>> is possible (see link below).
>>>
>>> Fix it by using get_swap_device()/put_swap_device(), which will stall
>>> swapoff(). There was an extra check in _swap_info_get() to confirm that
>>> the swap entry was valid. This wasn't present in get_swap_device() so
>>> I've added it. I couldn't find any existing get_swap_device() call sites
>>> where this extra check would cause any false alarms.
>>>
>>> Details of how to provoke one possible issue (thanks to David Hilenbrand
>>> for deriving this):
>>
>> Almost
>>
>> "s/Hilenbrand/Hildenbrand/" :)
> 
> Ahh sorry... I even explicitly checked it against your name on emails... fat
> fingers...

No need to be sorry. Even your average German person would get it wrong,
because there are other (more common) variants :)

[...]

>>>
>>
>> LGTM
>>
>> Are you planning on sending a doc extension for get_swap_device()?
> 
> I saw your comment:
> 
> We should likely update the documentation of get_swap_device(), that after
> decrementing the refcount, the SI might become stale and should not be touched
> without a prior get_swap_device().
> 
> But when I went to make the changes, I saw the documentation already said:
> 
> ...we need to enclose all swap related functions with get_swap_device() and
> put_swap_device()... Notice that swapoff ... can still happen before the
> percpu_ref_tryget_live() in get_swap_device() or after the percpu_ref_put() in
> put_swap_device()... The caller must be prepared for that.
> 
> I thought that already covered it? I'm sure as usual, I've misunderstood your
> point. Happy to respin if you have something in mind?

No need to respin, we could clarify on top, if we decide it makes sense.

I was thinking about something like this, making it clearer that the PTL
discussion above does not express the corner case we discovered:

diff --git a/mm/swapfile.c b/mm/swapfile.c
index 2b3a2d85e350b..646a436581eee 100644
--- a/mm/swapfile.c
+++ b/mm/swapfile.c
@@ -1232,6 +1232,11 @@ static unsigned char __swap_entry_free_locked(struct swap_info_struct *p,
   * with get_swap_device() and put_swap_device(), unless the swap
   * functions call get/put_swap_device() by themselves.
   *
+ * Note that when only holding the PTL, swapoff might succeed immediately
+ * after freeing a swap entry. Therefore, immediately after
+ * __swap_entry_free(), the swap info might become stale and should not
+ * be touched without a prior get_swap_device().
+ *
   * Check whether swap entry is valid in the swap device.  If so,
   * return pointer to swap_info_struct, and keep the swap entry valid
   * via preventing the swap device from being swapoff, until


-- 
Cheers,

David / dhildenb