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BUG: mm: VM_BUG_ON_PAGE in post_alloc_hook() via __ClearPagePrezeroed() on compound pages

DISCUSSION Breno Leitao 2 participants 2 messages Jun 4

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#0 lore raw

Hi Michael,

Booting next-20260603 (a225caacc365) on arm64 with CONFIG_DEBUG_VM=y panics in start_kernel() during kmem_cache_init():

  page dumped because: VM_BUG_ON_PAGE(1 && PageCompound(page))
  kernel BUG at ./include/linux/page-flags.h:682!
  Internal error: Oops - BUG: 00000000f2000800 [#1]  SMP
  CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper Not tainted 7.1.0-rc6-next-20260603
  Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT)
  pc : post_alloc_hook+0x224/0x2b8
  Call trace:
   post_alloc_hook+0x224/0x2b8 (P)
   get_page_from_freelist+0x18a4/0x1b18
   __alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x1b0/0x2068
   __alloc_pages_mpol+0x130/0x2d0
   alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x64/0xe8
   alloc_slab_page+0x88/0x140
   new_slab+0x11c/0x680
   ___slab_alloc+0x18c/0x7f0
   __kmalloc_noprof+0x534/0x938
   do_kmem_cache_create+0x724/0x890
   create_boot_cache+0xc8/0x148
   create_kmalloc_cache+0x5c/0xc8
   new_kmalloc_cache+0x274/0x438
   create_kmalloc_caches+0x2c/0x88
   kmem_cache_init+0x228/0x2e0
   mm_core_init+0x74/0xa0
   start_kernel+0x1cc/0x4d0

Bisected (by inspection) to:

504f40f6bda6 ("mm: page_reporting: skip redundant zeroing of host-zeroed
reported pages")

Reproducer:
- linux-next 20260603, arm64 defconfig + DEBUG_VM=y (any debug-heavy config will do; mine also has PROVE_LOCKING/DEBUG_LOCK_ALLOC, but those are not required to trip the BUG once an order>0 __GFP_COMP allocation hits prep_new_page).
- Boot under qemu-system-aarch64 -M virt with earlycon enabled.

I've tested something like the following and I was able to boot the host:

--- a/include/linux/page-flags.h
+++ b/include/linux/page-flags.h
@@ -679,7 +679,7 @@ FOLIO_FLAG_FALSE(idle)
* PagePrezeroed() tracks pages known to be zero. The allocator
* uses this to skip redundant zeroing in post_alloc_hook(). */
-__PAGEFLAG(Prezeroed, prezeroed, PF_NO_COMPOUND) +__PAGEFLAG(Prezeroed, prezeroed, PF_ANY)

With that change the lockdep+DEBUG_VM kernel boots all the way through SMP init and hands off to PID 1 on arm64.

Happy to test a follow-up patch if you'd prefer a different shape.

Thanks,
--breno

#1 lore raw
Quoted 4 lines · Breno Leitao

Hi Michael,

Booting next-20260603 (a225caacc365) on arm64 with CONFIG_DEBUG_VM=y panics in start_kernel() during kmem_cache_init():

it's my bad i pushed a wrong branch to next. Sorry.

Quoted 55 lines
  page dumped because: VM_BUG_ON_PAGE(1 && PageCompound(page))
  kernel BUG at ./include/linux/page-flags.h:682!
  Internal error: Oops - BUG: 00000000f2000800 [#1]  SMP
  CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper Not tainted 7.1.0-rc6-next-20260603
  Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT)
  pc : post_alloc_hook+0x224/0x2b8
  Call trace:
   post_alloc_hook+0x224/0x2b8 (P)
   get_page_from_freelist+0x18a4/0x1b18
   __alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x1b0/0x2068
   __alloc_pages_mpol+0x130/0x2d0
   alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x64/0xe8
   alloc_slab_page+0x88/0x140
   new_slab+0x11c/0x680
   ___slab_alloc+0x18c/0x7f0
   __kmalloc_noprof+0x534/0x938
   do_kmem_cache_create+0x724/0x890
   create_boot_cache+0xc8/0x148
   create_kmalloc_cache+0x5c/0xc8
   new_kmalloc_cache+0x274/0x438
   create_kmalloc_caches+0x2c/0x88
   kmem_cache_init+0x228/0x2e0
   mm_core_init+0x74/0xa0
   start_kernel+0x1cc/0x4d0

Bisected (by inspection) to:

504f40f6bda6 ("mm: page_reporting: skip redundant zeroing of host-zeroed
reported pages")

Reproducer:
- linux-next 20260603, arm64 defconfig + DEBUG_VM=y (any debug-heavy config will do; mine also has PROVE_LOCKING/DEBUG_LOCK_ALLOC, but those are not required to trip the BUG once an order>0 __GFP_COMP allocation hits prep_new_page).
- Boot under qemu-system-aarch64 -M virt with earlycon enabled.

I've tested something like the following and I was able to boot the host:

--- a/include/linux/page-flags.h
+++ b/include/linux/page-flags.h
@@ -679,7 +679,7 @@ FOLIO_FLAG_FALSE(idle)
* PagePrezeroed() tracks pages known to be zero. The allocator
* uses this to skip redundant zeroing in post_alloc_hook(). */
-__PAGEFLAG(Prezeroed, prezeroed, PF_NO_COMPOUND) +__PAGEFLAG(Prezeroed, prezeroed, PF_ANY)

With that change the lockdep+DEBUG_VM kernel boots all the way through SMP init and hands off to PID 1 on arm64.

Happy to test a follow-up patch if you'd prefer a different shape.

Thanks,
--breno