On Tue, Sep 22, 2026 at 04:35:43PM +0100, Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) wrote: >Now that page tables are freed after an RCU grace period, it is safe for >read-only page table walkers to walk page table ranges that are being >concurrently torn down, provided the mm is kept alive via mmgrab(). > >It is however unsafe for writers to do so, as they must obtain an >appropriate lock to do so safely. > >Update the pte_offset_map_lock()'s comment block to reflect this. > >Similarly update the process addresses documentation. > >Acked-by: Kiryl Shutsemau (Meta) <[email protected]> >Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) <[email protected]> >--- > Documentation/mm/process_addrs.rst | 6 ++++++ > mm/pgtable-generic.c | 15 +++++++++++---- > 2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) > >diff --git a/Documentation/mm/process_addrs.rst >b/Documentation/mm/process_addrs.rst >index a7296f251799..b1f4f44d75eb 100644 >--- a/Documentation/mm/process_addrs.rst >+++ b/Documentation/mm/process_addrs.rst >@@ -537,6 +537,12 @@ We establish basic locking rules when interacting with >page tables: > * When changing a page table entry the page table lock for that page table > **must** be held, except if you can safely assume nobody can access the page > tables concurrently (such as on invocation of :c:func:`!free_pgtables`). >+* Page tables may be *walked* under RCU alone, as page tables are freed only >+ after an RCU grace period has elapsed. However, any entry found must be >+ revalidated after the page table lock is taken (such as the >+ :c:func:`!pmd_same` recheck performed by :c:func:`!pte_offset_map_lock`) >+ before it is acted upon. Changing an entry requires the page table >+ lock and one of the locks that excludes teardown (mmap or VMA lock).
What about rmap walkers? try_to_unmap() clears PTEs under the rmap lock and PTL, without an mmap or VMA lock. Cheers, Lance > * Reads from and writes to page table entries must be *appropriately* > atomic. See the section on atomicity below for details. > * Populating previously empty entries requires that the mmap or VMA locks are >diff --git a/mm/pgtable-generic.c b/mm/pgtable-generic.c >index b91b1a98029c..a127e3e8f9b9 100644 >--- a/mm/pgtable-generic.c >+++ b/mm/pgtable-generic.c >@@ -385,10 +385,17 @@ pte_t *pte_offset_map_rw_nolock(struct mm_struct *mm, >pmd_t *pmd, > * Note: "RO" / "RW" expresses the intended semantics, not that the *kmap* > will > * be read-only/read-write protected. > * >- * Note that free_pgtables(), used after unmapping detached vmas, or when >- * exiting the whole mm, does not take page table lock before freeing a page >- * table, and may not use RCU at all: "outsiders" like khugepaged should avoid >- * pte_offset_map() and co once the vma is detached from mm or mm_users is >zero. >+ * Note that free_pgtables(), used after unmapping detached vmas or when >exiting >+ * the whole mm, does not take a page table lock before freeing a page table. >+ * >+ * As page table freeing itself is RCU-safe, page table readers can safely run >+ * concurrently with page table teardown. >+ * >+ * However, writers CANNOT as, without a lock being held, nothing prevents >+ * concurrent teardown. >+ * >+ * Also note that the PGD itself is freed at mmdrop() time, not under RCU - so >+ * the walker must keep the mm alive either by pinning the mm or the VMA. > */ > pte_t *pte_offset_map_lock(struct mm_struct *mm, pmd_t *pmd, > unsigned long addr, spinlock_t **ptlp) > >-- >2.55.0 > >
