mm: use pmdp_get_lockless() without surplus barrier()

Patch series "mm: allow pte_offset_map[_lock]() to fail", v2.

What is it all about?  Some mmap_lock avoidance i.e.  latency reduction. 
Initially just for the case of collapsing shmem or file pages to THPs; but
likely to be relied upon later in other contexts e.g.  freeing of empty
page tables (but that's not work I'm doing).  mmap_write_lock avoidance
when collapsing to anon THPs?  Perhaps, but again that's not work I've
done: a quick attempt was not as easy as the shmem/file case.

I would much prefer not to have to make these small but wide-ranging
changes for such a niche case; but failed to find another way, and have
heard that shmem MADV_COLLAPSE's usefulness is being limited by that
mmap_write_lock it currently requires.

These changes (though of course not these exact patches) have been in
Google's data centre kernel for three years now: we do rely upon them.

What is this preparatory series about?

The current mmap locking will not be enough to guard against that tricky
transition between pmd entry pointing to page table, and empty pmd entry,
and pmd entry pointing to huge page: pte_offset_map() will have to
validate the pmd entry for itself, returning NULL if no page table is
there.  What to do about that varies: sometimes nearby error handling
indicates just to skip it; but in many cases an ACTION_AGAIN or "goto
again" is appropriate (and if that risks an infinite loop, then there must
have been an oops, or pfn 0 mistaken for page table, before).

Given the likely extension to freeing empty page tables, I have not
limited this set of changes to a THP config; and it has been easier, and
sets a better example, if each site is given appropriate handling: even
where deeper study might prove that failure could only happen if the pmd
table were corrupted.

Several of the patches are, or include, cleanup on the way; and by the
end, pmd_trans_unstable() and suchlike are deleted: pte_offset_map() and
pte_offset_map_lock() then handle those original races and more.  Most
uses of pte_lockptr() are deprecated, with pte_offset_map_nolock() taking
its place.


This patch (of 32):

Use pmdp_get_lockless() in preference to READ_ONCE(*pmdp), to get a more
reliable result with PAE (or READ_ONCE as before without PAE); and remove
the unnecessary extra barrier()s which got left behind in its callers.

HOWEVER: Note the small print in linux/pgtable.h, where it was designed
specifically for fast GUP, and depends on interrupts being disabled for
its full guarantee: most callers which have been added (here and before)
do NOT have interrupts disabled, so there is still some need for caution.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/f35279a9-9ac0-de22-d245-591afbfb4dc@google.com
Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
Acked-by: Yu Zhao <yuzhao@google.com>
Acked-by: Peter Xu <peterx@redhat.com>
Cc: Alistair Popple <apopple@nvidia.com>
Cc: Anshuman Khandual <anshuman.khandual@arm.com>
Cc: Axel Rasmussen <axelrasmussen@google.com>
Cc: Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@csgroup.eu>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
Cc: David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
Cc: "Huang, Ying" <ying.huang@intel.com>
Cc: Ira Weiny <ira.weiny@intel.com>
Cc: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@ziepe.ca>
Cc: Kirill A. Shutemov <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes <lstoakes@gmail.com>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@techsingularity.net>
Cc: Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com>
Cc: Mike Kravetz <mike.kravetz@oracle.com>
Cc: Mike Rapoport (IBM) <rppt@kernel.org>
Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>
Cc: Naoya Horiguchi <naoya.horiguchi@nec.com>
Cc: Pavel Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@soleen.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Qi Zheng <zhengqi.arch@bytedance.com>
Cc: Ralph Campbell <rcampbell@nvidia.com>
Cc: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com>
Cc: SeongJae Park <sj@kernel.org>
Cc: Song Liu <song@kernel.org>
Cc: Steven Price <steven.price@arm.com>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>
Cc: Thomas Hellström <thomas.hellstrom@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
Cc: Yang Shi <shy828301@gmail.com>
Cc: Zack Rusin <zackr@vmware.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/mm/gup.c b/mm/gup.c
index a718b956edbe..d448fd286b8c 100644
--- a/mm/gup.c
+++ b/mm/gup.c
@@ -654,11 +654,7 @@ static struct page *follow_pmd_mask(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 	struct mm_struct *mm = vma->vm_mm;
 
 	pmd = pmd_offset(pudp, address);
-	/*
-	 * The READ_ONCE() will stabilize the pmdval in a register or
-	 * on the stack so that it will stop changing under the code.
-	 */
-	pmdval = READ_ONCE(*pmd);
+	pmdval = pmdp_get_lockless(pmd);
 	if (pmd_none(pmdval))
 		return no_page_table(vma, flags);
 	if (!pmd_present(pmdval))