tree 7620aa0da5b7314769b177dd0934bb87fe7c993b
parent 646d87b481dab4ba8301716600dfd276605b0ab0
author Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> 1271101469 -0700
committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> 1271120053 -0700

anonvma: when setting up page->mapping, we need to pick the _oldest_ anonvma

Otherwise we might be mapping in a page in a new mapping, but that page
(through the swapcache) would later be mapped into an old mapping too.
The page->mapping must be the case that works for everybody, not just
the mapping that happened to page it in first.

Here's the scenario:

 - page gets allocated/mapped by process A. Let's call the anon_vma we
   associate the page with 'A' to keep it easy to track.

 - Process A forks, creating process B. The anon_vma in B is 'B', and has
   a chain that looks like 'B' -> 'A'. Everything is fine.

 - Swapping happens. The page (with mapping pointing to 'A') gets swapped
   out (perhaps not to disk - it's enough to assume that it's just not
   mapped any more, and lives entirely in the swap-cache)

 - Process B pages it in, which goes like this:

        do_swap_page ->
          page = lookup_swap_cache(entry);
         ...
          set_pte_at(mm, address, page_table, pte);
          page_add_anon_rmap(page, vma, address);

   And think about what happens here!

   In particular, what happens is that this will now be the "first"
   mapping of that page, so page_add_anon_rmap() used to do

        if (first)
                __page_set_anon_rmap(page, vma, address);

   and notice what anon_vma it will use? It will use the anon_vma for
   process B!

   What happens then? Trivial: process 'A' also pages it in (nothing
   happens, it's not the first mapping), and then process 'B' execve's
   or exits or unmaps, making anon_vma B go away.

   End result: process A has a page that points to anon_vma B, but
   anon_vma B does not exist any more.  This can go on forever.  Forget
   about RCU grace periods, forget about locking, forget anything like
   that.  The bug is simply that page->mapping points to an anon_vma
   that was correct at one point, but was _not_ the one that was shared
   by all users of that possible mapping.

Changing it to always use the deepest anon_vma in the anonvma chain gets
us to the safest model.

This can be improved in certain cases: if we know the page is private to
just this particular mapping (for example, it's a new page, or it is the
only swapcache entry), we could pick the top (most specific) anon_vma.

But that's a future optimization. Make it _work_ reliably first.

Reviewed-by: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Tested-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> [ "What do you know, I think you fixed it!" ]
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>