[PATCH] arm64: mm: Add PTE_DIRTY back to PAGE_KERNEL* to fix kexec/hibernation

Catalin Marinas catalin.marinas at arm.com
Fri Feb 27 10:53:06 PST 2026


Commit 143937ca51cc ("arm64, mm: avoid always making PTE dirty in
pte_mkwrite()") changed pte_mkwrite_novma() to only clear PTE_RDONLY
when PTE_DIRTY is set. This was to allow writable-clean PTEs for swap
pages that haven't actually been written.

However, this broke kexec and hibernation for some platforms. Both go
through trans_pgd_create_copy() -> _copy_pte(), which calls
pte_mkwrite_novma() to make the temporary linear-map copy fully
writable. With the updated pte_mkwrite_novma(), read-only kernel pages
(without PTE_DIRTY) remain read-only in the temporary mapping.
While such behaviour is fine for user pages where hardware DBM or
trapping will make them writeable, subsequent in-kernel writes by the
kexec relocation code will fault.

Add PTE_DIRTY back to all _PAGE_KERNEL* protection definitions. This was
the case prior to 5.4, commit aa57157be69f ("arm64: Ensure
VM_WRITE|VM_SHARED ptes are clean by default"). With the kernel
linear-map PTEs always having PTE_DIRTY set, pte_mkwrite_novma()
correctly clears PTE_RDONLY.

Fixes: 143937ca51cc ("arm64, mm: avoid always making PTE dirty in pte_mkwrite()")
Signed-off-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas at arm.com>
Cc: <stable at vger.kernel.org>
Reported-by: Jianpeng Chang <jianpeng.chang.cn at windriver.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20251204062722.3367201-1-jianpeng.chang.cn@windriver.com
Cc: Will Deacon <will at kernel.org>
Cc: "Huang, Ying" <ying.huang at linux.alibaba.com>
Cc: Guenter Roeck <linux at roeck-us.net>
---

Since no-one posted this as a proper patch, here it is. However, I could
not reproduce the initial kexec failure, so for me kexec is working with
our without this patch.

Testing appreciated before we decide to merge it. Thanks.

 arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable-prot.h | 10 +++++-----
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable-prot.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable-prot.h
index 2b32639160de..f560e6420267 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable-prot.h
+++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable-prot.h
@@ -50,11 +50,11 @@
 
 #define _PAGE_DEFAULT		(_PROT_DEFAULT | PTE_ATTRINDX(MT_NORMAL))
 
-#define _PAGE_KERNEL		(PROT_NORMAL)
-#define _PAGE_KERNEL_RO		((PROT_NORMAL & ~PTE_WRITE) | PTE_RDONLY)
-#define _PAGE_KERNEL_ROX	((PROT_NORMAL & ~(PTE_WRITE | PTE_PXN)) | PTE_RDONLY)
-#define _PAGE_KERNEL_EXEC	(PROT_NORMAL & ~PTE_PXN)
-#define _PAGE_KERNEL_EXEC_CONT	((PROT_NORMAL & ~PTE_PXN) | PTE_CONT)
+#define _PAGE_KERNEL		(PROT_NORMAL | PTE_DIRTY)
+#define _PAGE_KERNEL_RO		((PROT_NORMAL & ~PTE_WRITE) | PTE_RDONLY | PTE_DIRTY)
+#define _PAGE_KERNEL_ROX	((PROT_NORMAL & ~(PTE_WRITE | PTE_PXN)) | PTE_RDONLY | PTE_DIRTY)
+#define _PAGE_KERNEL_EXEC	((PROT_NORMAL & ~PTE_PXN) | PTE_DIRTY)
+#define _PAGE_KERNEL_EXEC_CONT	((PROT_NORMAL & ~PTE_PXN) | PTE_CONT | PTE_DIRTY)
 
 #define _PAGE_SHARED		(_PAGE_DEFAULT | PTE_USER | PTE_RDONLY | PTE_NG | PTE_PXN | PTE_UXN | PTE_WRITE)
 #define _PAGE_SHARED_EXEC	(_PAGE_DEFAULT | PTE_USER | PTE_RDONLY | PTE_NG | PTE_PXN | PTE_WRITE)



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