From: Chris Mason <clm@meta.com>
To: Kairui Song <ryncsn@gmail.com>
Cc: <linux-mm@kvack.org>, Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>,
Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com>,
Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
Kemeng Shi <shikemeng@huaweicloud.com>,
Nhat Pham <nphamcs@gmail.com>, Chris Li <chrisl@kernel.org>,
Baoquan He <bhe@redhat.com>, Barry Song <baohua@kernel.org>,
<linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>, Kairui Song <kasong@tencent.com>,
<stable@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] mm/shmem, swap: fix race of truncate and swap entry split
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2026 05:02:34 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260128130336.727049-1-clm@meta.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260120-shmem-swap-fix-v3-1-3d33ebfbc057@tencent.com>
Kairui Song <ryncsn@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Kairui Song <kasong@tencent.com>
>
> The helper for shmem swap freeing is not handling the order of swap
> entries correctly. It uses xa_cmpxchg_irq to erase the swap entry, but
> it gets the entry order before that using xa_get_order without lock
> protection, and it may get an outdated order value if the entry is split
> or changed in other ways after the xa_get_order and before the
> xa_cmpxchg_irq.
>
> And besides, the order could grow and be larger than expected, and cause
> truncation to erase data beyond the end border. For example, if the
> target entry and following entries are swapped in or freed, then a large
> folio was added in place and swapped out, using the same entry, the
> xa_cmpxchg_irq will still succeed, it's very unlikely to happen though.
>
> To fix that, open code the Xarray cmpxchg and put the order retrieval
> and value checking in the same critical section. Also, ensure the order
> won't exceed the end border, skip it if the entry goes across the
> border.
>
> Skipping large swap entries crosses the end border is safe here.
> Shmem truncate iterates the range twice, in the first iteration,
> find_lock_entries already filtered such entries, and shmem will
> swapin the entries that cross the end border and partially truncate the
> folio (split the folio or at least zero part of it). So in the second
> loop here, if we see a swap entry that crosses the end order, it must
> at least have its content erased already.
>
> I observed random swapoff hangs and kernel panics when stress testing
> ZSWAP with shmem. After applying this patch, all problems are gone.
>
Hi everyone, another flag from running mm-next through AI review. I'm
low confidence on this one:
> diff --git a/mm/shmem.c b/mm/shmem.c
> --- a/mm/shmem.c
> +++ b/mm/shmem.c
[ ... ]
> @@ -1191,12 +1203,23 @@
> folio = fbatch.folios[i];
>
> if (xa_is_value(folio)) {
> + int order;
> long swaps_freed;
>
> if (unfalloc)
> continue;
> - swaps_freed = shmem_free_swap(mapping, indices[i], folio);
> + swaps_freed = shmem_free_swap(mapping, indices[i],
> + end - 1, folio);
> if (!swaps_freed) {
> + /*
> + * If found a large swap entry cross the end border,
> + * skip it as the truncate_inode_partial_folio above
> + * should have at least zerod its content once.
> + */
> + order = shmem_confirm_swap(mapping, indices[i],
> + radix_to_swp_entry(folio));
> + if (order > 0 && indices[i] + (1 << order) > end)
> + continue;
> /* Swap was replaced by page: retry */
> index = indices[i];
> break;
Could this code infinite loop if a large swap entry crosses the START
boundary instead of the END boundary?
When shmem_free_swap() returns 0, it could be either because:
(a) The entry was replaced by a page, or
(b) The entry failed the boundary check (base < index ||
base + nr_pages - 1 > end)
The boundary check here only handles case (b) for entries crossing the
END boundary:
if (order > 0 && indices[i] + (1 << order) > end)
continue;
But what happens if the entry crosses the START boundary? If
find_get_entries() returns a large swap entry at indices[i] where
the entry's base (calculated as indices[i] & ~((1 << order) - 1)) is
less than the truncation start point, then shmem_free_swap() will
return 0 due to the "base < index" check. The code will then call
shmem_confirm_swap(), get the order, check if it crosses the END
boundary (which it doesn't), and retry with the same index:
index = indices[i];
break;
The next iteration will find the same entry again at the same index,
leading to an infinite loop. For example:
- Truncating range [18, 30]
- Large swap entry at [16, 23] (order 3, 8 pages)
- indices[i] = 18
- shmem_free_swap() sees base=16 < index=18, returns 0
- Check: 18 + 8 > 30 is false (26 <= 30)
- Retries with index=18
- Loop repeats indefinitely
Should the boundary check also handle the START case, perhaps:
if (order > 0) {
pgoff_t base = indices[i] & ~((1UL << order) - 1);
if (base + (1 << order) - 1 > end || base < start)
continue;
}
where 'start' is preserved from before the loop?
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-01-28 13:04 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-01-19 16:11 Kairui Song
2026-01-19 21:36 ` Nhat Pham
2026-01-20 1:16 ` Baolin Wang
2026-01-23 1:46 ` Chris Li
2026-01-28 13:02 ` Chris Mason [this message]
2026-01-28 16:52 ` Kairui Song
2026-01-28 19:20 ` Chris Mason
2026-01-29 2:27 ` Baolin Wang
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