The quilt patch titled Subject: mm/debug_vm_pgtable: clear page table entries at destroy_args() has been removed from the -mm tree. Its filename was mm-debug_vm_pgtable-clear-page-table-entries-at-destroy_args.patch
This patch was dropped because it was merged into the mm-hotfixes-stable branch of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/mm
------------------------------------------------------ From: "Herton R. Krzesinski" herton@redhat.com Subject: mm/debug_vm_pgtable: clear page table entries at destroy_args() Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2025 18:40:51 -0300
The mm/debug_vm_pagetable test allocates manually page table entries for the tests it runs, using also its manually allocated mm_struct. That in itself is ok, but when it exits, at destroy_args() it fails to clear those entries with the *_clear functions.
The problem is that leaves stale entries. If another process allocates an mm_struct with a pgd at the same address, it may end up running into the stale entry. This is happening in practice on a debug kernel with CONFIG_DEBUG_VM_PGTABLE=y, for example this is the output with some extra debugging I added (it prints a warning trace if pgtables_bytes goes negative, in addition to the warning at check_mm() function):
[ 2.539353] debug_vm_pgtable: [get_random_vaddr ]: random_vaddr is 0x7ea247140000 [ 2.539366] kmem_cache info [ 2.539374] kmem_cachep 0x000000002ce82385 - freelist 0x0000000000000000 - offset 0x508 [ 2.539447] debug_vm_pgtable: [init_args ]: args->mm is 0x000000002267cc9e (...) [ 2.552800] WARNING: CPU: 5 PID: 116 at include/linux/mm.h:2841 free_pud_range+0x8bc/0x8d0 [ 2.552816] Modules linked in: [ 2.552843] CPU: 5 UID: 0 PID: 116 Comm: modprobe Not tainted 6.12.0-105.debug_vm2.el10.ppc64le+debug #1 VOLUNTARY [ 2.552859] Hardware name: IBM,9009-41A POWER9 (architected) 0x4e0202 0xf000005 of:IBM,FW910.00 (VL910_062) hv:phyp pSeries [ 2.552872] NIP: c0000000007eef3c LR: c0000000007eef30 CTR: c0000000003d8c90 [ 2.552885] REGS: c0000000622e73b0 TRAP: 0700 Not tainted (6.12.0-105.debug_vm2.el10.ppc64le+debug) [ 2.552899] MSR: 800000000282b033 <SF,VEC,VSX,EE,FP,ME,IR,DR,RI,LE> CR: 24002822 XER: 0000000a [ 2.552954] CFAR: c0000000008f03f0 IRQMASK: 0 [ 2.552954] GPR00: c0000000007eef30 c0000000622e7650 c000000002b1ac00 0000000000000001 [ 2.552954] GPR04: 0000000000000008 0000000000000000 c0000000007eef30 ffffffffffffffff [ 2.552954] GPR08: 00000000ffff00f5 0000000000000001 0000000000000048 0000000000004000 [ 2.552954] GPR12: 00000003fa440000 c000000017ffa300 c0000000051d9f80 ffffffffffffffdb [ 2.552954] GPR16: 0000000000000000 0000000000000008 000000000000000a 60000000000000e0 [ 2.552954] GPR20: 4080000000000000 c0000000113af038 00007fffcf130000 0000700000000000 [ 2.552954] GPR24: c000000062a6a000 0000000000000001 8000000062a68000 0000000000000001 [ 2.552954] GPR28: 000000000000000a c000000062ebc600 0000000000002000 c000000062ebc760 [ 2.553170] NIP [c0000000007eef3c] free_pud_range+0x8bc/0x8d0 [ 2.553185] LR [c0000000007eef30] free_pud_range+0x8b0/0x8d0 [ 2.553199] Call Trace: [ 2.553207] [c0000000622e7650] [c0000000007eef30] free_pud_range+0x8b0/0x8d0 (unreliable) [ 2.553229] [c0000000622e7750] [c0000000007f40b4] free_pgd_range+0x284/0x3b0 [ 2.553248] [c0000000622e7800] [c0000000007f4630] free_pgtables+0x450/0x570 [ 2.553274] [c0000000622e78e0] [c0000000008161c0] exit_mmap+0x250/0x650 [ 2.553292] [c0000000622e7a30] [c0000000001b95b8] __mmput+0x98/0x290 [ 2.558344] [c0000000622e7a80] [c0000000001d1018] exit_mm+0x118/0x1b0 [ 2.558361] [c0000000622e7ac0] [c0000000001d141c] do_exit+0x2ec/0x870 [ 2.558376] [c0000000622e7b60] [c0000000001d1ca8] do_group_exit+0x88/0x150 [ 2.558391] [c0000000622e7bb0] [c0000000001d1db8] sys_exit_group+0x48/0x50 [ 2.558407] [c0000000622e7be0] [c00000000003d810] system_call_exception+0x1e0/0x4c0 [ 2.558423] [c0000000622e7e50] [c00000000000d05c] system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec (...) [ 2.558892] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- [ 2.559022] BUG: Bad rss-counter state mm:000000002267cc9e type:MM_ANONPAGES val:1 [ 2.559037] BUG: non-zero pgtables_bytes on freeing mm: -6144
Here the modprobe process ended up with an allocated mm_struct from the mm_struct slab that was used before by the debug_vm_pgtable test. That is not a problem, since the mm_struct is initialized again etc., however, if it ends up using the same pgd table, it bumps into the old stale entry when clearing/freeing the page table entries, so it tries to free an entry already gone (that one which was allocated by the debug_vm_pgtable test), which also explains the negative pgtables_bytes since it's accounting for not allocated entries in the current process.
As far as I looked pgd_{alloc,free} etc. does not clear entries, and clearing of the entries is explicitly done in the free_pgtables-> free_pgd_range->free_p4d_range->free_pud_range->free_pmd_range-> free_pte_range path. However, the debug_vm_pgtable test does not call free_pgtables, since it allocates mm_struct and entries manually for its test and eg. not goes through page faults. So it also should clear manually the entries before exit at destroy_args().
This problem was noticed on a reboot X number of times test being done on a powerpc host, with a debug kernel with CONFIG_DEBUG_VM_PGTABLE enabled. Depends on the system, but on a 100 times reboot loop the problem could manifest once or twice, if a process ends up getting the right mm->pgd entry with the stale entries used by mm/debug_vm_pagetable. After using this patch, I couldn't reproduce/experience the problems anymore. I was able to reproduce the problem as well on latest upstream kernel (6.16).
I also modified destroy_args() to use mmput() instead of mmdrop(), there is no reason to hold mm_users reference and not release the mm_struct entirely, and in the output above with my debugging prints I already had patched it to use mmput, it did not fix the problem, but helped in the debugging as well.
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20250731214051.4115182-1-herton@redhat.com Fixes: 3c9b84f044a9 ("mm/debug_vm_pgtable: introduce struct pgtable_debug_args") Signed-off-by: Herton R. Krzesinski herton@redhat.com Cc: Anshuman Khandual anshuman.khandual@arm.com Cc: Christophe Leroy christophe.leroy@csgroup.eu Cc: Gavin Shan gshan@redhat.com Cc: Gerald Schaefer gerald.schaefer@linux.ibm.com Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton akpm@linux-foundation.org ---
mm/debug_vm_pgtable.c | 9 +++++++-- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
--- a/mm/debug_vm_pgtable.c~mm-debug_vm_pgtable-clear-page-table-entries-at-destroy_args +++ a/mm/debug_vm_pgtable.c @@ -990,29 +990,34 @@ static void __init destroy_args(struct p
/* Free page table entries */ if (args->start_ptep) { + pmd_clear(args->pmdp); pte_free(args->mm, args->start_ptep); mm_dec_nr_ptes(args->mm); }
if (args->start_pmdp) { + pud_clear(args->pudp); pmd_free(args->mm, args->start_pmdp); mm_dec_nr_pmds(args->mm); }
if (args->start_pudp) { + p4d_clear(args->p4dp); pud_free(args->mm, args->start_pudp); mm_dec_nr_puds(args->mm); }
- if (args->start_p4dp) + if (args->start_p4dp) { + pgd_clear(args->pgdp); p4d_free(args->mm, args->start_p4dp); + }
/* Free vma and mm struct */ if (args->vma) vm_area_free(args->vma);
if (args->mm) - mmdrop(args->mm); + mmput(args->mm); }
static struct page * __init _
Patches currently in -mm which might be from herton@redhat.com are