[PATCH] mm: get_user_pages vs. try_to_unmap

Hugh Dickins · Linus Torvalds · commit ebd6867f0193 · 2004-06-04T20:52:39.000-07:00
Andrea Arcangeli's fix to an ironic weakness with get_user_pages. 

try_to_unmap_one must check page_count against page-&gt;mapcount before unmapping
a swapcache page: because the raised pagecount by which get_user_pages ensures
the page cannot be freed, will cause any write fault to see that page as not
exclusively owned, and therefore a copy page will be substituted for it - the
reverse of what's intended.

rmap.c was entirely free of such page_count heuristics before, I tried hard to
avoid putting this in.  But Andrea's fix rarely gives a false positive; and
although it might be nicer to change exclusive_swap_page etc.  to rely on
page-&gt;mapcount instead, it seems likely that we'll want to get rid of
page-&gt;mapcount later, so better not to entrench its use.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins &lt;hugh@veritas.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton &lt;akpm@osdl.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds &lt;torvalds@osdl.org&gt;
diff --git a/mm/rmap.c b/mm/rmap.c
@@ -485,6 +485,23 @@ static int try_to_unmap_one(struct page *page, struct vm_area_struct *vma)
 		goto out_unmap;
 	}
 
+	/*
+	 * Don't pull an anonymous page out from under get_user_pages.
+	 * GUP carefully breaks COW and raises page count (while holding
+	 * page_table_lock, as we have here) to make sure that the page
+	 * cannot be freed.  If we unmap that page here, a user write
+	 * access to the virtual address will bring back the page, but
+	 * its raised count will (ironically) be taken to mean it's not
+	 * an exclusive swap page, do_wp_page will replace it by a copy
+	 * page, and the user never get to see the data GUP was holding
+	 * the original page for.
+	 */
+	if (PageSwapCache(page) &&
+	    page_count(page) != page->mapcount + 2) {
+		ret = SWAP_FAIL;
+		goto out_unmap;
+	}
+
 	/* Nuke the page table entry. */
 	flush_cache_page(vma, address);
 	pteval = ptep_clear_flush(vma, address, pte);
