[PATCH v1] arm64/mm: avoid race condition of update page table when kernel init

[Catalin Marinas]

On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 08:36:07AM +0100, Jianyong Wu wrote:
> From Anshuman Khandual <anshuman.khandual at arm.com>:
> > On 10/27/21 3:18 PM, Jianyong Wu wrote:
> > > Race condition of page table update can happen in kernel boot period
> > > as both of memory hotplug action when kernel init and the
> > > mark_rodata_ro can update page table. For virtio-mem, the function excute flow chart is:
> > >
> > > -------------------------
> > > kernel_init
> > >   kernel_init_freeable
> > >     ...
> > >       do_initcall
> > >         ...
> > >           module_init [A]
> > >
> > >   ...
> > >   mark_readonly
> > >     mark_rodata_ro [B]
> > > -------------------------
[...]
> > > We can see that the error derived from the l3 translation as the pte
> > > value is *0*. That is because the fixmap has been clear when access.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Jianyong Wu <jianyong.wu at arm.com>
> > > ---
> > >  arch/arm64/mm/mmu.c | 2 ++
> > >  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
> > >
> > > diff --git a/arch/arm64/mm/mmu.c b/arch/arm64/mm/mmu.c index
> > > cfd9deb347c3..567dfba8f08a 100644
> > > --- a/arch/arm64/mm/mmu.c
> > > +++ b/arch/arm64/mm/mmu.c
> > > @@ -564,8 +564,10 @@ void mark_rodata_ro(void)
> > >      * to cover NOTES and EXCEPTION_TABLE.
> > >      */
> > >     section_size = (unsigned long)__init_begin - (unsigned long)__start_rodata;
> > > +   get_online_mems();
> > >     update_mapping_prot(__pa_symbol(__start_rodata), (unsigned long)__start_rodata,
> > >                         section_size, PAGE_KERNEL_RO);
> > > +   put_online_mems();
> > >
> > >     debug_checkwx();
> > >  }
> >
> > While this should solve the current problem i.e race between concurrent
> > memory hotplug operation and mark_rodata_ro(), but I am still wondering
> > whether this is the fix at the right place and granularity. Basically a hotplug
> > operation queued in an work queue at [A] can execute during [B] is the root
> > cause of this problem.
> 
> Not exactly, this issue doesn't only happen at the the *pure* kernel
> boot. For example, hotplug memory through VM monitor when VM boot. We
> can't foresee when that happen. Thus, this issue can affect all kinds
> of memory hotplug mechanism, including ACPI based memory hotplug and
> virtio-mem. I'm not sure that fix it here is the best way. If the race
> only happens between kernel init and memory hotplug, I think it's fine
> to fix it here. IMO, this issue results from the race for "fixmap"
> resource. I wonder why this global resource is not protected by a
> lock. Maybe we can add one and fix it there.

IIUC the race is caused by multiple attempts to use the fixmap at the
same time. We can add a fixmap_lock and hold it during
__create_pgd_mapping().

-- 
Catalin