[PATCH v2 2/2] mm/mprotect: special-case small folios when applying write permissions

Pedro Falcato
2026-03-24T15:44:11Z

The common order-0 case is important enough to want its own branch, and
avoids the hairy, large loop logic that the CPU does not seem to handle
particularly well.

While at it, encourage the compiler to inline batch PTE logic and resolve
constant branches by adding __always_inline strategically.

Reviewed-by: Lorenzo Stoakes (Oracle) <ljs@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Pedro Falcato <pfalcato@suse.de>
---
mm/mprotect.c | 17 ++++++++++++-----
1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/mprotect.c b/mm/mprotect.c
index 2eaf862e5734..2fda26107066 100644
--- a/mm/mprotect.c
+++ b/mm/mprotect.c
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@ bool can_change_pte_writable(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr,
return can_change_shared_pte_writable(vma, pte);
}

-static int mprotect_folio_pte_batch(struct folio *folio, pte_t *ptep,
+static __always_inline int mprotect_folio_pte_batch(struct folio *folio, pte_t *ptep,
pte_t pte, int max_nr_ptes, fpb_t flags)
{
/* No underlying folio, so cannot batch */
@@ -117,9 +117,9 @@ static int mprotect_folio_pte_batch(struct folio *folio, pte_t *ptep,
}

/* Set nr_ptes number of ptes, starting from idx */
-static void prot_commit_flush_ptes(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr,
- pte_t *ptep, pte_t oldpte, pte_t ptent, int nr_ptes,
- int idx, bool set_write, struct mmu_gather *tlb)
+static __always_inline void prot_commit_flush_ptes(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
+ unsigned long addr, pte_t *ptep, pte_t oldpte, pte_t ptent,
+ int nr_ptes, int idx, bool set_write, struct mmu_gather *tlb)
{
/*
* Advance the position in the batch by idx; note that if idx > 0,
@@ -169,7 +169,7 @@ static int page_anon_exclusive_sub_batch(int start_idx, int max_len,
* pte of the batch. Therefore, we must individually check all pages and
* retrieve sub-batches.
*/
-static void commit_anon_folio_batch(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
+static __always_inline void commit_anon_folio_batch(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
struct folio *folio, struct page *first_page, unsigned long addr, pte_t *ptep,
pte_t oldpte, pte_t ptent, int nr_ptes, struct mmu_gather *tlb)
{
@@ -177,6 +177,13 @@ static void commit_anon_folio_batch(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
int sub_batch_idx = 0;
int len;

+ /* Optimize for the common order-0 case. */
+ if (likely(nr_ptes == 1)) {
+ prot_commit_flush_ptes(vma, addr, ptep, oldpte, ptent, 1,
+ 0, PageAnonExclusive(first_page), tlb);
+ return;
+ }
+
while (nr_ptes) {
expected_anon_exclusive = PageAnonExclusive(first_page + sub_batch_idx);
len = page_anon_exclusive_sub_batch(sub_batch_idx, nr_ptes,
--
2.53.0