Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 22:06:23 +0200
From: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
To: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@redhat.com>, Brian Gerst <brgerst@gmail.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>, Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>, Waiman Long <Waiman.Long@hp.com>
Subject: Re: why do we need vmalloc_sync_all?
Message-ID: <20150614200623.GB19582@redhat.com>
References: <1434188955-31397-1-git-send-email-mingo@kernel.org> <20150613185828.GA32376@redhat.com> <20150614075943.GA810@gmail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <20150614075943.GA810@gmail.com>
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17)
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
Content-Length: 1601
Lines: 43

On 06/14, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>
> * Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> > I didn't read v2 yet, but I'd like to ask a question.
> >
> > Why do we need vmalloc_sync_all()?
> >
> > It has a single caller, register_die_notifier() which calls it without
> > any explanation. IMO, this needs a comment at least.
>
> Yes, it's used to work around crashes in modular callbacks: if the callbacks
> happens to be called from within the page fault path, before the vmalloc page
> fault handler runs, then we have a catch-22 problem.
>
> It's rare but not entirely impossible.

But again, the kernel no longer does this? do_page_fault() does vmalloc_fault()
without notify_die(). If it fails, I do not see how/why a modular DIE_OOPS
handler could try to resolve this problem and trigger another fault.

> > I am not sure I understand the changelog in 101f12af correctly, but at first
> > glance vmalloc_sync_all() is no longer needed at least on x86, do_page_fault()
> > no longer does notify_die(DIE_PAGE_FAULT). And btw DIE_PAGE_FAULT has no users.
> > DIE_MNI too...
> >
> > Perhaps we can simply kill it on x86?
>
> So in theory we could still have it run from DIE_OOPS, and that could turn a
> survivable kernel crash into a non-survivable one.

I don't understand... But OK, my understanding of this magic is very limited,
please forget.

Thanks,

Oleg.

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/