FAILED: patch "[PATCH] mm/damon/vaddr: avoid hw-driven pte updates during" failed to apply to 6.12-stable tree

The patch below does not apply to the 6.12-stable tree.
If someone wants it applied there, or to any other stable or longterm tree, then please email the backport, including the original git commit id to <[email protected]>.

To reproduce the conflict and resubmit, you may use the following commands:

git fetch https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/ linux-6.12.y
git checkout FETCH_HEAD
git cherry-pick -x 39c0ceedd54557bdc1542de08d22b2ed33e534e4
# <resolve conflicts, build, test, etc.>
git commit -s
git send-email --to '<[email protected]>' --in-reply-to '2026092930-reversal-glaring-71e8@gregkh' --subject-prefix 'PATCH 6.12.y' 'HEAD^..'

Possible dependencies:

thanks,

greg k-h

------------------ original commit in Linus's tree ------------------

From 39c0ceedd54557bdc1542de08d22b2ed33e534e4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: SJ Park <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2026 10:03:56 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] mm/damon/vaddr: avoid hw-driven pte updates during
damon_hugetlb_mkold()

damon_hugetlb_mkold() reads the page table entry into a local variable, unsets the accessed bit in the variable, and updates the page table entry with the updated variable value. If hardware updates the same page table entry in parallel, the hw updates could be lost. For example, hardware-updated dirty bits might be lost.

Avoid the parallel updates by clearing the page table entry when reading it together, using huge_ptep_get_and_clear(). If a parallel write to the memory is made after the clearing, the hw will see the page table entry is cleared, trigger page fault and wait until it is handled. The page fault handling will wait for damon_hugetlb_mkold() due to the page table lock.

Because hugetlbfs is an in-memory file system and hugetlb pages cannot be reclaimed, no critical issue is expected to my best knowledge. But definitely this is a nasty bug that should be fixed sooner rather than later.

The issue was discovered [1] by Sashiko.

index 0648400b2d65..04ee2a2c6a4d 100644
@@ -293,22 +293,29 @@ static int damon_mkold_pmd_entry(pmd_t *pmd, unsigned long addr,
 }
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_HUGETLB_PAGE
+static bool damon_hugetlb_ptep_mkold(pte_t *pte, struct mm_struct *mm,
+		struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr, pte_t *entry)
+{
+	unsigned long psize = huge_page_size(hstate_vma(vma));
+
+	if (!pte_young(*entry))
+		return false;
+	*entry = huge_ptep_get_and_clear(mm, addr, pte, psize);
+	*entry = pte_mkold(*entry);
+	set_huge_pte_at(mm, addr, pte, *entry, psize);
+	return true;
+}
+
 static void damon_hugetlb_mkold(pte_t *pte, struct mm_struct *mm,
 				struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr)
 {
 	bool referenced = false;
 	pte_t entry = huge_ptep_get(mm, addr, pte);
 	struct folio *folio = pfn_folio(pte_pfn(entry));
-	unsigned long psize = huge_page_size(hstate_vma(vma));
 
 	folio_get(folio);
 
-	if (pte_young(entry)) {
-		referenced = true;
-		entry = pte_mkold(entry);
-		set_huge_pte_at(mm, addr, pte, entry, psize);
-	}
-
+	referenced = damon_hugetlb_ptep_mkold(pte, mm, vma, addr, &entry);
 	if (mmu_notifier_clear_young(mm, addr,
 				     addr + huge_page_size(hstate_vma(vma))))
 		referenced = true;

From: SJ Park <[email protected]>

[ Upstream commit 39c0ceedd54557bdc1542de08d22b2ed33e534e4 ]

damon_hugetlb_mkold() reads the page table entry into a local variable, unsets the accessed bit in the variable, and updates the page table entry with the updated variable value. If hardware updates the same page table entry in parallel, the hw updates could be lost. For example, hardware-updated dirty bits might be lost.

Avoid the parallel updates by clearing the page table entry when reading it together, using huge_ptep_get_and_clear(). If a parallel write to the memory is made after the clearing, the hw will see the page table entry is cleared, trigger page fault and wait until it is handled. The page fault handling will wait for damon_hugetlb_mkold() due to the page table lock.

Because hugetlbfs is an in-memory file system and hugetlb pages cannot be reclaimed, no critical issue is expected to my best knowledge. But definitely this is a nasty bug that should be fixed sooner rather than later.

The issue was discovered [1] by Sashiko.

---
 mm/damon/vaddr.c | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

index 089ee23e07de7..963a098af9ecd 100644
@@ -347,6 +347,7 @@ static void damon_hugetlb_mkold(pte_t *pte, struct mm_struct *mm,
 
 	if (pte_young(entry)) {
 		referenced = true;
+		entry = huge_ptep_get_and_clear(mm, addr, pte, psize);
 		entry = pte_mkold(entry);
 		set_huge_pte_at(mm, addr, pte, entry, psize);
 	}

2.53.0