fix page->count discrepancy for zero page
Subsystems (2)
PATCH 1/1 fix page->count discrepancy for zero page
While writing some analysis tools for memory hot-remove, we came across a single page which had a ->count that always increased, without bound. It ended up always being the zero page, and it was caused by a leaked reference in some do_wp_page() code that ends up avoiding PG_reserved pages.
Basically what happens is that page_cache_release()/put_page() ignore PG_reserved pages, while page_cache_get()/get_page() go ahead and take the reference. So, each time there's a COW fault on the zero-page, you get a leaked page->count increment.
It's pretty rare to have a COW fault on anything that's PG_reserved, in fact, I can't think of anything else that this applies to other than the zero page.
In any case, it the bug doesn't cause any real problems, but it is a bit of an annoyance and is obviously incorrect. We've been running with this patch for about 3 months now, and haven't run into any problems with it.
Attached patch is against 2.6.7 and applies to -mm3 properly.
-- Dave
mm/memory.c +2 -1
@@ -1064,7 +1064,8 @@ static int do_wp_page(struct mm_struct */* * Ok, we need to copy. Oh, well.. */ -page_cache_get (old_page); +if (!PageReserved (old_page)) +page_cache_get (old_page);spin_unlock (&mm->page_table_lock);if (unlikely (anon_vma_prepare (vma)))