* [PATCH v2 1/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount when mapping pages
2026-11-07 22:23 [PATCH v2 0/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount David Hildenbrand (Arm)
@ 2026-11-07 22:23 ` David Hildenbrand (Arm)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 2/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount when splicing into pipes David Hildenbrand (Arm)
` (3 subsequent siblings)
4 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: David Hildenbrand (Arm) @ 2026-11-07 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Lorenzo Stoakes, Liam R. Howlett, Vlastimil Babka, Mike Rapoport,
Suren Baghdasaryan, Michal Hocko, Matthew Wilcox (Oracle),
Jan Kara, Andrew Morton, Zi Yan, Baolin Wang, Nico Pache,
Ryan Roberts, Dev Jain, Barry Song, Lance Yang, Usama Arif,
Kiryl Shutsemau, Matthew Brost, Joshua Hahn, Byungchul Park,
Gregory Price, Ying Huang, Alistair Popple, Peter Xu,
Johannes Weiner, Song Liu, Rik van Riel, Miklos Szeredi,
Alexander Viro, Christian Brauner, Hugh Dickins, Will Deacon,
Aneesh Kumar K.V, Nick Piggin, Peter Zijlstra, Arnd Bergmann,
Jason Gunthorpe, Kevin Tian, Joerg Roedel (AMD),
Robin Murphy, Steve Sistare, John Hubbard,
Jose A. Perez de Azpillaga, Josef Bacik
Cc: David Hildenbrand (Arm),
linux-mm, linux-kernel, linux-fsdevel, fuse-devel, linux-arch,
iommu, Chris Mason, stable
With large file folios, overflowing the folio mapcount and refcount
became possible. For anon folios it is currently not really an issue:
each large anon folio can only be mapped once into a process; on 4k
kernels it would be more processes than usually allowed on a system, and
on 16k or 64k kernels the processes alone would consume hundreds of GiB.
Something to be sorted out at some point, but it's not as urgent.
Being able to overflow the refcount is not really big news, but it's about
time that we do something about it because some modern technology might
find ways to abuse it :)
One of the enablers for that was commit ddc58f27f9ee ("mm: drop tail page
refcounting"), however, file thp support was added later.
File folios can be mapped multiple times into the same process, allowing
for processes to hold many references to the same folio.
As a short-term solution, let's introduce two folio refcount limits:
one for ordinary consumers and one for admins. Leave some headroom
before the refcount goes negative, which we really don't want (having
the mapcount go negative is also not expected).
Start reporting SIGBUS if we run into limits. When restoring mappings
from migration entries, instead zap the pte/pmd entry. We allow for
slightly exceeding the limit to keep things simpler.
During fork(), prefer not copying page table entries over failing fork.
Export __folio_ref_count_over_limit() right away as that will be needed
from fuse code next. Use has_capability_noaudit(current, CAP_SYS_RESOURCE),
so filesystem credential overrides do not affect access to the admin
reserve, and to not generate auditing messages simply because we access
optional reserves.
This is far from ideal, but better than all easy alternatives we can
backport comfortably. For now it fixes the big problem: letting
the refcount (+mapcount) go negative and cause trouble.
This is only a temporary fix, we'll follow up with something better.
Check order 0 folios as well for consistency: each
folio_add_file_rmap*() and folio_dup_file_rmap*() needs a prior check.
Also, just document -EHWPOISON for copy_present_ptes() while at it.
Note: When zapping file migration entries, uffd-wp is preserved using PTE
markers, but uffd-rwp protection is lost because there is no corresponding
marker. try_to_unmap() already has the same problem when unmapping file
folios, so we'll happily ignore it.
Note2: For now we don't let migration or PTE table collapse exceed any
limits. Admins can always refault, and if we are already operating in
admin reserves, something is already off.
Reported-by: Chris Mason <mason@kernel.org>
Fixes: 800d8c63b2e9 ("shmem: add huge pages support")
Fixes: 99cb0dbd47a1 ("mm,thp: add read-only THP support for (non-shmem) FS")
Fixes: 793917d997df ("mm/readahead: Add large folio readahead")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@kernel.org>
---
include/linux/mm.h | 30 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
mm/filemap.c | 6 ++++++
mm/huge_memory.c | 29 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
mm/memory.c | 35 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----
mm/migrate.c | 11 +++++++++++
mm/userfaultfd.c | 4 ++++
mm/util.c | 12 ++++++++++++
7 files changed, 121 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
diff --git a/include/linux/mm.h b/include/linux/mm.h
index 6a34dd3800f56..3356f7a670d1e 100644
--- a/include/linux/mm.h
+++ b/include/linux/mm.h
@@ -2232,6 +2232,36 @@ vm_fault_t finish_fault(struct vm_fault *vmf);
#define folio_ref_zero_or_close_to_overflow(folio) \
((unsigned int) folio_ref_count(folio) + 127u <= 127u)
+/* Leave separate reserves for administrators and concurrent reference gains. */
+#define FOLIO_REF_COUNT_LIMIT (INT_MAX - (1U << 26))
+#define FOLIO_REF_COUNT_ADMIN_LIMIT (INT_MAX - (1U << 25))
+
+bool __folio_ref_count_over_limit(unsigned int ref_count);
+
+/**
+ * folio_ref_count_over_limit - Check whether to refuse more folio references.
+ * @folio: The folio.
+ *
+ * Check before adding page table mappings or other significant refcount users
+ * to large pagecache folios (!hugetlb), to avoid overflows.
+ *
+ * Checking other folios does no harm.
+ *
+ * This check is an approximation; we leave some headroom such that concurrent
+ * increments, batches and temporary references are not a problem.
+ *
+ * Return: True if the caller should refuse additional references, false
+ * otherwise.
+ */
+static inline bool folio_ref_count_over_limit(const struct folio *folio)
+{
+ const unsigned int ref_count = folio_ref_count(folio);
+
+ if (likely(ref_count < FOLIO_REF_COUNT_LIMIT))
+ return false;
+ return __folio_ref_count_over_limit(ref_count);
+}
+
/**
* folio_get - Increment the reference count on a folio.
* @folio: The folio.
diff --git a/mm/filemap.c b/mm/filemap.c
index 86297841f9955..920bbf86dfdff 100644
--- a/mm/filemap.c
+++ b/mm/filemap.c
@@ -3968,6 +3968,11 @@ vm_fault_t filemap_map_pages(struct vm_fault *vmf,
unsigned long end;
vm_fault_t map_ret;
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
+ folio_ref_dec(folio);
+ goto next;
+ }
+
addr += (xas.xa_index - last_pgoff) << PAGE_SHIFT;
vmf->pte += xas.xa_index - last_pgoff;
last_pgoff = xas.xa_index;
@@ -4009,6 +4014,7 @@ vm_fault_t filemap_map_pages(struct vm_fault *vmf,
mmap_miss - 1);
}
+next:
folio_unlock(folio);
} while ((folio = next_uptodate_folio(&xas, mapping, end_pgoff)) != NULL);
add_mm_counter(vma->vm_mm, folio_type, rss);
diff --git a/mm/huge_memory.c b/mm/huge_memory.c
index d0e19d9e6b651..7cae95070841a 100644
--- a/mm/huge_memory.c
+++ b/mm/huge_memory.c
@@ -1626,6 +1626,7 @@ static vm_fault_t insert_pmd(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr,
{
struct mm_struct *mm = vma->vm_mm;
pgtable_t pgtable = NULL;
+ vm_fault_t ret = VM_FAULT_NOPAGE;
spinlock_t *ptl;
pmd_t entry;
@@ -1662,6 +1663,10 @@ static vm_fault_t insert_pmd(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr,
if (is_huge_zero_folio(fop.folio)) {
entry = pmd_mkspecial(entry);
} else {
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(fop.folio))) {
+ ret = VM_FAULT_SIGBUS;
+ goto out_unlock;
+ }
folio_get(fop.folio);
folio_add_file_rmap_pmd(fop.folio, &fop.folio->page, vma);
add_mm_counter(mm, mm_counter_file(fop.folio), HPAGE_PMD_NR);
@@ -1688,7 +1693,7 @@ static vm_fault_t insert_pmd(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr,
spin_unlock(ptl);
if (pgtable)
pte_free(mm, pgtable);
- return VM_FAULT_NOPAGE;
+ return ret;
}
/**
@@ -1759,6 +1764,7 @@ static vm_fault_t insert_pud(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr,
pud_t *pud, struct folio_or_pfn fop, pgprot_t prot, bool write)
{
struct mm_struct *mm = vma->vm_mm;
+ vm_fault_t ret = VM_FAULT_NOPAGE;
spinlock_t *ptl;
pud_t entry;
@@ -1784,6 +1790,10 @@ static vm_fault_t insert_pud(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr,
if (fop.is_folio) {
entry = folio_mk_pud(fop.folio, vma->vm_page_prot);
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(fop.folio))) {
+ ret = VM_FAULT_SIGBUS;
+ goto out_unlock;
+ }
folio_get(fop.folio);
folio_add_file_rmap_pud(fop.folio, &fop.folio->page, vma);
add_mm_counter(mm, mm_counter_file(fop.folio), HPAGE_PUD_NR);
@@ -1799,7 +1809,7 @@ static vm_fault_t insert_pud(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr,
update_mmu_cache_pud(vma, addr, pud);
out_unlock:
spin_unlock(ptl);
- return VM_FAULT_NOPAGE;
+ return ret;
}
/**
@@ -2095,6 +2105,11 @@ int copy_huge_pud(struct vm_area_struct *dst_vma, struct vm_area_struct *src_vma
if (page) {
struct folio *folio = page_folio(page);
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
+ /* Skip this PUD; it can be faulted in later. */
+ ret = (dst_vma->vm_flags & VM_MIXEDMAP) ? -ENOMEM : 0;
+ goto out_unlock;
+ }
folio_get(folio);
/*
* TODO: once we support anonymous pages, use
@@ -5215,6 +5230,16 @@ void remove_migration_pmd(struct page_vma_mapped_walk *pvmw, struct folio *folio
if (!(pvmw->pmd && !pvmw->pte))
return;
+ if (!folio_test_anon(folio) && unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
+ /* Leave the file mapping absent so it can be faulted in. */
+ pmd_clear(pvmw->pmd);
+ if (arch_needs_pgtable_deposit())
+ zap_deposited_table(mm, pvmw->pmd);
+ update_hiwater_rss(mm);
+ add_mm_counter(mm, mm_counter_file(folio), -HPAGE_PMD_NR);
+ return;
+ }
+
entry = softleaf_from_pmd(*pvmw->pmd);
folio_get(folio);
pmde = folio_mk_pmd(folio, READ_ONCE(vma->vm_page_prot));
diff --git a/mm/memory.c b/mm/memory.c
index d33a2e1512f74..7e1cdaa80b75f 100644
--- a/mm/memory.c
+++ b/mm/memory.c
@@ -1166,9 +1166,14 @@ static __always_inline void __copy_present_ptes(struct vm_area_struct *dst_vma,
/*
* Copy one present PTE, trying to batch-process subsequent PTEs that map
* consecutive pages of the same folio by copying them as well.
+ * PTEs mapping an over-limit file folio can be skipped if a fault in the
+ * child will reconstruct them.
*
* Returns -EAGAIN if one preallocated page is required to copy the next PTE.
- * Otherwise, returns the number of copied PTEs (at least 1).
+ * Returns -ENOMEM if the file folio refcount is too high and the PTE must
+ * be copied.
+ * Returns -EHWPOISON if copying a page fails.
+ * Otherwise, returns the number of processed PTEs (at least 1).
*/
static inline int
copy_present_ptes(struct vm_area_struct *dst_vma, struct vm_area_struct *src_vma,
@@ -1186,6 +1191,16 @@ copy_present_ptes(struct vm_area_struct *dst_vma, struct vm_area_struct *src_vma
folio = page_folio(page);
+ if (!folio_test_anon(folio) && unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
+ if (dst_vma->vm_flags & VM_MIXEDMAP)
+ return -ENOMEM;
+ if (userfaultfd_pte_rwp(dst_vma, pte))
+ return -ENOMEM;
+ /* Preserve uffd-wp protection when faulting the page back in. */
+ cond_install_uffd_wp_ptes(dst_vma, addr, dst_pte, pte, 1);
+ return 1;
+ }
+
/*
* If we likely have to copy, just don't bother with batching. Make
* sure that the common "small folio" case is as fast as possible
@@ -1367,9 +1382,9 @@ copy_pte_range(struct vm_area_struct *dst_vma, struct vm_area_struct *src_vma,
/*
* If we need a pre-allocated page for this pte, drop the
* locks, allocate, and try again.
- * If copy failed due to hwpoison in source page, break out.
+ * Other errors abort the copy after releasing the page table locks.
*/
- if (unlikely(ret == -EAGAIN || ret == -EHWPOISON))
+ if (unlikely(ret < 0))
break;
if (unlikely(prealloc)) {
/*
@@ -1399,7 +1414,7 @@ copy_pte_range(struct vm_area_struct *dst_vma, struct vm_area_struct *src_vma,
goto out;
}
entry.val = 0;
- } else if (ret == -EBUSY || unlikely(ret == -EHWPOISON)) {
+ } else if (ret == -EBUSY || ret == -ENOMEM || unlikely(ret == -EHWPOISON)) {
goto out;
} else if (ret == -EAGAIN) {
prealloc = folio_prealloc(src_mm, src_vma, addr, false);
@@ -2474,6 +2489,8 @@ static int insert_page_into_pte_locked(struct vm_area_struct *vma, pte_t *pte,
if (unlikely(is_zero_folio(folio))) {
pteval = pte_mkspecial(pteval);
} else {
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio)))
+ return -EOVERFLOW;
folio_get(folio);
pteval = mk_pte(page, prot);
if (mkwrite) {
@@ -5752,6 +5769,9 @@ vm_fault_t do_set_pmd(struct vm_fault *vmf, struct folio *folio, struct page *pa
if (unlikely(folio_test_has_hwpoisoned(folio)))
return ret;
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio)))
+ return VM_FAULT_SIGBUS;
+
/*
* Archs like ppc64 need additional space to store information
* related to pte entry. Use the preallocated table for that.
@@ -5806,6 +5826,9 @@ vm_fault_t do_set_pmd(struct vm_fault *vmf, struct folio *folio, struct page *pa
* @page: The first page to create a PTE for.
* @nr: The number of PTEs to create.
* @addr: The first address to create a PTE for.
+ *
+ * For file mappings, the caller must check folio_ref_count_over_limit()
+ * before adding the mapping references and installing PTEs.
*/
void set_pte_range(struct vm_fault *vmf, struct folio *folio,
struct page *page, unsigned int nr, unsigned long addr)
@@ -5972,6 +5995,10 @@ vm_fault_t finish_fault(struct vm_fault *vmf)
goto fallback;
}
+ if (!is_cow && unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
+ ret = VM_FAULT_SIGBUS;
+ goto unlock;
+ }
folio_ref_add(folio, nr_pages - 1);
set_pte_range(vmf, folio, page, nr_pages, addr);
type = is_cow ? MM_ANONPAGES : mm_counter_file(folio);
diff --git a/mm/migrate.c b/mm/migrate.c
index 092fca80927a7..153a93b0c38d7 100644
--- a/mm/migrate.c
+++ b/mm/migrate.c
@@ -385,6 +385,17 @@ static bool remove_migration_pte(struct folio *folio,
try_to_map_unused_to_zeropage(&pvmw, folio, old_pte, idx))
continue;
+ if (!folio_test_anon(folio) && !folio_test_hugetlb(folio) &&
+ unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
+ /* File contents remain available for a later fault. */
+ pte_clear(vma->vm_mm, pvmw.address, pvmw.pte);
+ cond_install_uffd_wp_ptes(vma, pvmw.address,
+ pvmw.pte, old_pte, 1);
+ update_hiwater_rss(vma->vm_mm);
+ dec_mm_counter(vma->vm_mm, mm_counter_file(folio));
+ continue;
+ }
+
folio_get(folio);
new = folio_page(folio, idx);
pte = mk_pte(new, READ_ONCE(vma->vm_page_prot));
diff --git a/mm/userfaultfd.c b/mm/userfaultfd.c
index 169f681f9849b..89853c157fa91 100644
--- a/mm/userfaultfd.c
+++ b/mm/userfaultfd.c
@@ -373,6 +373,10 @@ static int mfill_atomic_install_pte(pmd_t *dst_pmd,
goto out_unlock;
if (page_in_cache) {
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
+ ret = -ENOMEM;
+ goto out_unlock;
+ }
folio_add_file_rmap_pte(folio, page, dst_vma);
} else {
folio_add_new_anon_rmap(folio, dst_vma, dst_addr, RMAP_EXCLUSIVE);
diff --git a/mm/util.c b/mm/util.c
index 80f6c714844f2..a906dfa755ff1 100644
--- a/mm/util.c
+++ b/mm/util.c
@@ -791,6 +791,18 @@ int folio_mc_copy(struct folio *dst, struct folio *src)
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(folio_mc_copy);
+bool __folio_ref_count_over_limit(unsigned int ref_count)
+{
+ if (ref_count >= FOLIO_REF_COUNT_ADMIN_LIMIT)
+ return true;
+ /* Background threads must not consume admin reserves. */
+ if (current->flags & PF_KTHREAD)
+ return true;
+ /* Use the task's credentials, which filesystem overrides cannot change. */
+ return !has_capability_noaudit(current, CAP_SYS_RESOURCE);
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(__folio_ref_count_over_limit);
+
int sysctl_overcommit_memory __read_mostly = OVERCOMMIT_GUESS;
static int sysctl_overcommit_ratio __read_mostly = 50;
static unsigned long sysctl_overcommit_kbytes __read_mostly;
--
2.56.0
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread* [PATCH v2 2/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount when splicing into pipes
2026-11-07 22:23 [PATCH v2 0/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount David Hildenbrand (Arm)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 1/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount when mapping pages David Hildenbrand (Arm)
@ 2026-11-07 22:23 ` David Hildenbrand (Arm)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 3/5] mm/mmu_gather: flush pending references early before the folio limit David Hildenbrand (Arm)
` (2 subsequent siblings)
4 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: David Hildenbrand (Arm) @ 2026-11-07 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Lorenzo Stoakes, Liam R. Howlett, Vlastimil Babka, Mike Rapoport,
Suren Baghdasaryan, Michal Hocko, Matthew Wilcox (Oracle),
Jan Kara, Andrew Morton, Zi Yan, Baolin Wang, Nico Pache,
Ryan Roberts, Dev Jain, Barry Song, Lance Yang, Usama Arif,
Kiryl Shutsemau, Matthew Brost, Joshua Hahn, Byungchul Park,
Gregory Price, Ying Huang, Alistair Popple, Peter Xu,
Johannes Weiner, Song Liu, Rik van Riel, Miklos Szeredi,
Alexander Viro, Christian Brauner, Hugh Dickins, Will Deacon,
Aneesh Kumar K.V, Nick Piggin, Peter Zijlstra, Arnd Bergmann,
Jason Gunthorpe, Kevin Tian, Joerg Roedel (AMD),
Robin Murphy, Steve Sistare, John Hubbard,
Jose A. Perez de Azpillaga, Josef Bacik
Cc: David Hildenbrand (Arm),
linux-mm, linux-kernel, linux-fsdevel, fuse-devel, linux-arch,
iommu, stable
Similar to mapping pagecache folios into page tables, let's reject
additional references when splicing folios into a pipe if the refcount
is at its limit, similar to how we handle it during GUP.
This will prevent more cases of possible folio refcount overflows with
large pagecache folios.
Let's keep it simple and check in the two callers of
splice_folio_into_pipe(). Return -EOVERFLOW if the limit prevents any
progress, so do_splice_read() can fall back to copy_splice_read() when
read_iter is available. This keeps sendfile() and other splice users
working when ordinary reads would still succeed.
Also fall back to copying in FUSE when taking another reference through
fuse_ref_folio() would exceed the limit.
Also check in try_get_page() to cover pipe-buffer duplication by tee()
and partial pipe-to-pipe splicing.
Fixes: 800d8c63b2e9 ("shmem: add huge pages support")
Fixes: 99cb0dbd47a1 ("mm,thp: add read-only THP support for (non-shmem) FS")
Fixes: 793917d997df ("mm/readahead: Add large folio readahead")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@kernel.org>
---
fs/fuse/dev.c | 5 +++--
fs/splice.c | 8 +++++++-
include/linux/mm.h | 9 ++++++---
mm/filemap.c | 11 ++++++++---
mm/shmem.c | 4 ++++
5 files changed, 28 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
diff --git a/fs/fuse/dev.c b/fs/fuse/dev.c
index 3641abb90d6bb..4f6b7b42bfd3e 100644
--- a/fs/fuse/dev.c
+++ b/fs/fuse/dev.c
@@ -1265,9 +1265,10 @@ int fuse_copy_folio(struct fuse_copy_state *cs, struct folio **foliop,
if (cs->write && cs->pipebufs && folio) {
/*
* Can't control lifetime of pipe buffers, so always
- * copy user pages.
+ * copy user pages. Also copy folios at their refcount limit.
*/
- if (cs->req->args->user_pages) {
+ if (cs->req->args->user_pages ||
+ unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
err = fuse_copy_fill(cs);
if (err)
return err;
diff --git a/fs/splice.c b/fs/splice.c
index e6d43329ed3f0..df73a4e65118b 100644
--- a/fs/splice.c
+++ b/fs/splice.c
@@ -956,6 +956,7 @@ static ssize_t do_splice_read(struct file *in, loff_t *ppos,
unsigned int flags)
{
unsigned int p_space;
+ ssize_t ret;
if (unlikely(!(in->f_mode & FMODE_READ)))
return -EBADF;
@@ -977,7 +978,12 @@ static ssize_t do_splice_read(struct file *in, loff_t *ppos,
*/
if ((in->f_flags & O_DIRECT) || IS_DAX(in->f_mapping->host))
return copy_splice_read(in, ppos, pipe, len, flags);
- return in->f_op->splice_read(in, ppos, pipe, len, flags);
+ ret = in->f_op->splice_read(in, ppos, pipe, len, flags);
+
+ /* Fallback to copying when hitting folio refcount limits. */
+ if (unlikely(ret == -EOVERFLOW) && in->f_op->read_iter)
+ ret = copy_splice_read(in, ppos, pipe, len, flags);
+ return ret;
}
/**
diff --git a/include/linux/mm.h b/include/linux/mm.h
index 3356f7a670d1e..dd50262a70758 100644
--- a/include/linux/mm.h
+++ b/include/linux/mm.h
@@ -2288,10 +2288,13 @@ static inline void get_page(struct page *page)
static inline __must_check bool try_get_page(struct page *page)
{
- page = compound_head(page);
- if (WARN_ON_ONCE(page_ref_count(page) <= 0))
+ struct folio *folio = page_folio(page);
+
+ if (WARN_ON_ONCE(folio_ref_count(folio) <= 0))
return false;
- page_ref_inc(page);
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio)))
+ return false;
+ folio_ref_inc(folio);
return true;
}
diff --git a/mm/filemap.c b/mm/filemap.c
index 920bbf86dfdff..8564165e224b3 100644
--- a/mm/filemap.c
+++ b/mm/filemap.c
@@ -3094,9 +3094,10 @@ size_t splice_folio_into_pipe(struct pipe_inode_info *pipe,
* Return: On success, the number of bytes read will be returned and *@ppos
* will be updated if appropriate; 0 will be returned if there is no more data
* to be read; -EAGAIN will be returned if the pipe had no space, and some
- * other negative error code will be returned on error. A short read may occur
- * if the pipe has insufficient space, we reach the end of the data or we hit a
- * hole.
+ * other negative error code will be returned on error; -EOVERFLOW will be
+ * returned if the folio's refcount is too high and the caller can fall back to
+ * copying. A short read may occur if the pipe has insufficient space, we reach
+ * the end of the data or we hit a hole.
*/
ssize_t filemap_splice_read(struct file *in, loff_t *ppos,
struct pipe_inode_info *pipe,
@@ -3168,6 +3169,10 @@ ssize_t filemap_splice_read(struct file *in, loff_t *ppos,
if (writably_mapped)
flush_dcache_folio(folio);
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
+ error = -EOVERFLOW;
+ goto out;
+ }
n = min_t(loff_t, len, isize - *ppos);
n = splice_folio_into_pipe(pipe, folio, *ppos, n);
if (!n)
diff --git a/mm/shmem.c b/mm/shmem.c
index be4ab228cf67c..6067b1de6417f 100644
--- a/mm/shmem.c
+++ b/mm/shmem.c
@@ -3830,6 +3830,10 @@ static ssize_t shmem_file_splice_read(struct file *in, loff_t *ppos,
* Ok, we have the page, and it's up-to-date, so we can
* now splice it into the pipe.
*/
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio))) {
+ error = -EOVERFLOW;
+ break;
+ }
n = splice_folio_into_pipe(pipe, folio, *ppos, part);
folio_put(folio);
folio = NULL;
--
2.56.0
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread* [PATCH v2 3/5] mm/mmu_gather: flush pending references early before the folio limit
2026-11-07 22:23 [PATCH v2 0/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount David Hildenbrand (Arm)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 1/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount when mapping pages David Hildenbrand (Arm)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 2/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount when splicing into pipes David Hildenbrand (Arm)
@ 2026-11-07 22:23 ` David Hildenbrand (Arm)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 4/5] iommufd: fix cleanup when adding memfd folio pins fails David Hildenbrand (Arm)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 5/5] mm/gup: limit pagecache folio refcount when grabbing references David Hildenbrand (Arm)
4 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: David Hildenbrand (Arm) @ 2026-11-07 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Lorenzo Stoakes, Liam R. Howlett, Vlastimil Babka, Mike Rapoport,
Suren Baghdasaryan, Michal Hocko, Matthew Wilcox (Oracle),
Jan Kara, Andrew Morton, Zi Yan, Baolin Wang, Nico Pache,
Ryan Roberts, Dev Jain, Barry Song, Lance Yang, Usama Arif,
Kiryl Shutsemau, Matthew Brost, Joshua Hahn, Byungchul Park,
Gregory Price, Ying Huang, Alistair Popple, Peter Xu,
Johannes Weiner, Song Liu, Rik van Riel, Miklos Szeredi,
Alexander Viro, Christian Brauner, Hugh Dickins, Will Deacon,
Aneesh Kumar K.V, Nick Piggin, Peter Zijlstra, Arnd Bergmann,
Jason Gunthorpe, Kevin Tian, Joerg Roedel (AMD),
Robin Murphy, Steve Sistare, John Hubbard,
Jose A. Perez de Azpillaga, Josef Bacik
Cc: David Hildenbrand (Arm),
linux-mm, linux-kernel, linux-fsdevel, fuse-devel, linux-arch,
iommu, Chris Mason, stable
When a task zaps mappings (e.g., MADV_DONTNEED), it can drop the PT lock
and defer dropping the folio references. In the meantime, page faults
can refault pagecache folios, creating more references for the same
folios. These deferred references can build up over multiple VMAs.
Let's just request a flush after enqueueing a pagecache folio whose
refcount reached a certain threshold. Start flushing well before new
references are refused, regardless of the caller's privileges.
When returning "true" from __tlb_remove_folio_pages_size(), PTE zapping
will flush the TLB before dropping the PT lock, but drop the references
afterwards. Refaults can still race with that, but flushing early reduces
the risk of letting others hit the limit.
This is a temporary measure until we have something better.
Reported-by: Chris Mason <mason@kernel.org>
Fixes: 800d8c63b2e9 ("shmem: add huge pages support")
Fixes: 99cb0dbd47a1 ("mm,thp: add read-only THP support for (non-shmem) FS")
Fixes: 793917d997df ("mm/readahead: Add large folio readahead")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Reviewed-by: Jose A. Perez de Azpillaga <azpijr@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Lance Yang <lance.yang@linux.dev>
Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@kernel.org>
---
include/asm-generic/tlb.h | 4 ++--
include/linux/mm.h | 1 +
mm/memory.c | 4 ++--
mm/mmu_gather.c | 10 ++++++----
4 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
diff --git a/include/asm-generic/tlb.h b/include/asm-generic/tlb.h
index 3f4a180b48f3c..4bba02fd5d543 100644
--- a/include/asm-generic/tlb.h
+++ b/include/asm-generic/tlb.h
@@ -75,8 +75,8 @@
* - __tlb_remove_folio_pages_size()
*
* __tlb_remove_folio_pages_size() is the basic primitive that queues pages
- * for freeing. It will return a boolean indicating if the queue is (now)
- * full and a call to tlb_flush_mmu() is required.
+ * for freeing. It returns true when a call to tlb_flush_mmu() is required,
+ * either because the queue is full or a folio is near its refcount limit.
*
* tlb_remove_page() and tlb_remove_page_size() imply the call to
* tlb_flush_mmu() when required and has no return value.
diff --git a/include/linux/mm.h b/include/linux/mm.h
index dd50262a70758..244bf5d441a64 100644
--- a/include/linux/mm.h
+++ b/include/linux/mm.h
@@ -2235,6 +2235,7 @@ vm_fault_t finish_fault(struct vm_fault *vmf);
/* Leave separate reserves for administrators and concurrent reference gains. */
#define FOLIO_REF_COUNT_LIMIT (INT_MAX - (1U << 26))
#define FOLIO_REF_COUNT_ADMIN_LIMIT (INT_MAX - (1U << 25))
+#define FOLIO_REF_COUNT_FLUSH_LIMIT (INT_MAX - (1U << 27))
bool __folio_ref_count_over_limit(unsigned int ref_count);
diff --git a/mm/memory.c b/mm/memory.c
index 7e1cdaa80b75f..9d474c16fccd6 100644
--- a/mm/memory.c
+++ b/mm/memory.c
@@ -2074,8 +2074,8 @@ static unsigned long zap_pte_range(struct mmu_gather *tlb,
pte_unmap_unlock(start_pte, ptl);
/*
- * If we forced a TLB flush (either due to running out of
- * batch buffers or because we needed to flush dirty TLB
+ * If we forced a TLB flush (either to release batched
+ * references or because we needed to flush dirty TLB
* entries before releasing the ptl), free the batched
* memory too. Come back again if we didn't do everything.
*/
diff --git a/mm/mmu_gather.c b/mm/mmu_gather.c
index 9f353f0e2ef4d..e98397ac577c4 100644
--- a/mm/mmu_gather.c
+++ b/mm/mmu_gather.c
@@ -179,10 +179,7 @@ static bool __tlb_remove_folio_pages_size(struct mmu_gather *tlb,
#endif
batch = tlb->active;
- /*
- * Add the page and check if we are full. If so
- * force a flush.
- */
+ /* Add the pages before deciding whether we need to flush. */
if (likely(nr_pages == 1)) {
batch->encoded_pages[batch->nr++] = encode_page(page, flags);
} else {
@@ -190,6 +187,11 @@ static bool __tlb_remove_folio_pages_size(struct mmu_gather *tlb,
batch->encoded_pages[batch->nr++] = encode_page(page, flags);
batch->encoded_pages[batch->nr++] = encode_nr_pages(nr_pages);
}
+ /* Flush pending references well before new references are refused. */
+ if (unlikely((unsigned int)folio_ref_count(page_folio(page)) >=
+ FOLIO_REF_COUNT_FLUSH_LIMIT))
+ return true;
+
/*
* Make sure that we can always add another "page" + "nr_pages",
* requiring two entries instead of only a single one.
--
2.56.0
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread* [PATCH v2 4/5] iommufd: fix cleanup when adding memfd folio pins fails
2026-11-07 22:23 [PATCH v2 0/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount David Hildenbrand (Arm)
` (2 preceding siblings ...)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 3/5] mm/mmu_gather: flush pending references early before the folio limit David Hildenbrand (Arm)
@ 2026-11-07 22:23 ` David Hildenbrand (Arm)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 5/5] mm/gup: limit pagecache folio refcount when grabbing references David Hildenbrand (Arm)
4 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: David Hildenbrand (Arm) @ 2026-11-07 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Lorenzo Stoakes, Liam R. Howlett, Vlastimil Babka, Mike Rapoport,
Suren Baghdasaryan, Michal Hocko, Matthew Wilcox (Oracle),
Jan Kara, Andrew Morton, Zi Yan, Baolin Wang, Nico Pache,
Ryan Roberts, Dev Jain, Barry Song, Lance Yang, Usama Arif,
Kiryl Shutsemau, Matthew Brost, Joshua Hahn, Byungchul Park,
Gregory Price, Ying Huang, Alistair Popple, Peter Xu,
Johannes Weiner, Song Liu, Rik van Riel, Miklos Szeredi,
Alexander Viro, Christian Brauner, Hugh Dickins, Will Deacon,
Aneesh Kumar K.V, Nick Piggin, Peter Zijlstra, Arnd Bergmann,
Jason Gunthorpe, Kevin Tian, Joerg Roedel (AMD),
Robin Murphy, Steve Sistare, John Hubbard,
Jose A. Perez de Azpillaga, Josef Bacik
Cc: David Hildenbrand (Arm),
linux-mm, linux-kernel, linux-fsdevel, fuse-devel, linux-arch,
iommu, stable, Jason Gunthorpe
folio_add_pins() can fail after memfd_pin_folios() succeeded pinning a
folio. Upcoming folio refcount limit checks will make this easier to
trigger.
Let's fix three problems in the error handling:
1. pfn_reader_release_pins() uses the allocated array size instead of the
number of folios returned by memfd_pin_folios(). With large folios,
cleanup can unpin uninitialized entries. Remember the number of returned
folios and use that during cleanup.
2. pin_memfd_pages() returns on failure without releasing the pins acquired
by the current call. Release the per-page pins for folios already
expanded into the page array, and the single pins for the remaining
folios.
3. pfn_reader_next() returns on failure before updating batch_end_index,
even if the batch already contains successfully expanded folios. Update
it before propagating the error so cleanup releases those pins as well.
Fixes: 92687c793644 ("iommufd: pfn_reader for file mappings")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Reviewed-by: Lance Yang <lance.yang@linux.dev>
Reviewed-by: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com>
Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@kernel.org>
---
drivers/iommu/iommufd/pages.c | 15 +++++++++++----
1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
diff --git a/drivers/iommu/iommufd/pages.c b/drivers/iommu/iommufd/pages.c
index 2f6153108add7..fcdbde007a9ab 100644
--- a/drivers/iommu/iommufd/pages.c
+++ b/drivers/iommu/iommufd/pages.c
@@ -781,6 +781,7 @@ struct pfn_reader_user {
struct file *file;
struct folio **ufolios;
size_t ufolios_len;
+ unsigned long ufolios_count;
unsigned long ufolios_offset;
struct folio **ufolios_next;
};
@@ -800,6 +801,7 @@ static void pfn_reader_user_init(struct pfn_reader_user *user,
user->file = (pages->type == IOPT_ADDRESS_FILE) ? pages->file : NULL;
user->ufolios = NULL;
user->ufolios_len = 0;
+ user->ufolios_count = 0;
user->ufolios_next = NULL;
user->ufolios_offset = 0;
}
@@ -843,6 +845,7 @@ static long pin_memfd_pages(struct pfn_reader_user *user, unsigned long start,
offset >>= PAGE_SHIFT;
user->ufolios_next = user->ufolios;
+ user->ufolios_count = nfolios;
user->ufolios_offset = offset;
for (i = 0; i < nfolios; i++) {
@@ -859,8 +862,12 @@ static long pin_memfd_pages(struct pfn_reader_user *user, unsigned long start,
} else {
int rc = folio_add_pins(folio, npin - 1);
- if (rc)
+ if (rc) {
+ unpin_user_pages(user->upages,
+ upages - user->upages);
+ unpin_folios(user->ufolios + i, nfolios - i);
return rc;
+ }
while (npin--)
*upages++ = folio_page(folio, offset++);
@@ -1251,14 +1258,14 @@ static int pfn_reader_next(struct pfn_reader *pfns)
return -EINVAL;
rc = pfn_reader_fill_span(pfns);
+ pfns->batch_end_index = pfns->batch_start_index +
+ pfns->batch.total_pfns;
if (rc)
return rc;
if (WARN_ON(!pfns->batch.total_pfns))
return -EINVAL;
- pfns->batch_end_index =
- pfns->batch_start_index + pfns->batch.total_pfns;
if (pfns->batch_end_index == pfns->span.last_used + 1)
interval_tree_double_span_iter_next(&pfns->span);
@@ -1320,7 +1327,7 @@ static void pfn_reader_release_pins(struct pfn_reader *pfns)
if (!user->file) {
unpin_user_pages(user->upages + start_index, npages);
} else {
- long n = user->ufolios_len / sizeof(*user->ufolios);
+ const unsigned long n = user->ufolios_count;
unpin_folios(user->ufolios_next,
user->ufolios + n - user->ufolios_next);
--
2.56.0
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread* [PATCH v2 5/5] mm/gup: limit pagecache folio refcount when grabbing references
2026-11-07 22:23 [PATCH v2 0/5] mm: limit pagecache folio refcount David Hildenbrand (Arm)
` (3 preceding siblings ...)
2026-11-07 22:23 ` [PATCH v2 4/5] iommufd: fix cleanup when adding memfd folio pins fails David Hildenbrand (Arm)
@ 2026-11-07 22:23 ` David Hildenbrand (Arm)
4 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: David Hildenbrand (Arm) @ 2026-11-07 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Lorenzo Stoakes, Liam R. Howlett, Vlastimil Babka, Mike Rapoport,
Suren Baghdasaryan, Michal Hocko, Matthew Wilcox (Oracle),
Jan Kara, Andrew Morton, Zi Yan, Baolin Wang, Nico Pache,
Ryan Roberts, Dev Jain, Barry Song, Lance Yang, Usama Arif,
Kiryl Shutsemau, Matthew Brost, Joshua Hahn, Byungchul Park,
Gregory Price, Ying Huang, Alistair Popple, Peter Xu,
Johannes Weiner, Song Liu, Rik van Riel, Miklos Szeredi,
Alexander Viro, Christian Brauner, Hugh Dickins, Will Deacon,
Aneesh Kumar K.V, Nick Piggin, Peter Zijlstra, Arnd Bergmann,
Jason Gunthorpe, Kevin Tian, Joerg Roedel (AMD),
Robin Murphy, Steve Sistare, John Hubbard,
Jose A. Perez de Azpillaga, Josef Bacik
Cc: David Hildenbrand (Arm),
linux-mm, linux-kernel, linux-fsdevel, fuse-devel, linux-arch,
iommu, stable
Let's add a folio_ref_count_over_limit() check in fast and slow GUP
before acquiring additional references or pins.
Keep it simple and use the check for all folio types.
Don't check capabilities with IRQs disabled, as even unaudited capability
checks can take locks. Refuse access to the admin reserve, so GUP-fast will
fail and fall back to GUP-slow if possible.
Also propagate try_grab_folio() errors when grabbing additional
references in __get_user_pages() and in memfd_pin_folios(), so hitting
the limit returns -ENOMEM instead of -EFAULT and -EINVAL, respectively.
Keep the existing invalid-refcount warnings.
Fixes: 800d8c63b2e9 ("shmem: add huge pages support")
Fixes: 99cb0dbd47a1 ("mm,thp: add read-only THP support for (non-shmem) FS")
Fixes: 793917d997df ("mm/readahead: Add large folio readahead")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@kernel.org>
---
include/linux/mm.h | 11 +++++------
mm/gup.c | 24 +++++++++++++++---------
mm/util.c | 3 +++
3 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)
diff --git a/include/linux/mm.h b/include/linux/mm.h
index 244bf5d441a64..f62820cc9159c 100644
--- a/include/linux/mm.h
+++ b/include/linux/mm.h
@@ -2246,6 +2246,9 @@ bool __folio_ref_count_over_limit(unsigned int ref_count);
* Check before adding page table mappings or other significant refcount users
* to large pagecache folios (!hugetlb), to avoid overflows.
*
+ * Also required when pinning folios without a dedicated pincount that use
+ * GUP_PIN_COUNTING_BIAS.
+ *
* Checking other folios does no harm.
*
* This check is an approximation; we leave some headroom such that concurrent
@@ -2938,12 +2941,8 @@ static inline bool folio_maybe_dma_pinned(struct folio *folio)
return atomic_read(&folio->_pincount) > 0;
/*
- * folio_ref_count() is signed. If that refcount overflows, then
- * folio_ref_count() returns a negative value, and callers will avoid
- * further incrementing the refcount.
- *
- * Here, for that overflow case, use the sign bit to count a little
- * bit higher via unsigned math, and thus still get an accurate result.
+ * Use unsigned math so even an unexpected negative refcount is
+ * treated as possibly pinned.
*/
return ((unsigned int)folio_ref_count(folio)) >=
GUP_PIN_COUNTING_BIAS;
diff --git a/mm/gup.c b/mm/gup.c
index 2ab42fc6834e5..522049f2b8663 100644
--- a/mm/gup.c
+++ b/mm/gup.c
@@ -79,6 +79,8 @@ static inline struct folio *try_get_folio(struct page *page, int refs)
folio = page_folio(page);
if (WARN_ON_ONCE(folio_ref_count(folio) < 0))
return NULL;
+ if (unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio)))
+ return NULL;
if (unlikely(!folio_ref_try_add(folio, refs)))
return NULL;
@@ -143,6 +145,10 @@ int __must_check try_grab_folio(struct folio *folio, int refs,
if (WARN_ON_ONCE(folio_ref_count(folio) <= 0))
return -ENOMEM;
+ if ((flags & (FOLL_GET | FOLL_PIN)) &&
+ unlikely(folio_ref_count_over_limit(folio)))
+ return -ENOMEM;
+
if (unlikely(!(flags & FOLL_PCI_P2PDMA) && folio_is_pci_p2pdma(folio)))
return -EREMOTEIO;
@@ -1482,17 +1488,17 @@ static long __get_user_pages(struct mm_struct *mm,
struct folio *folio = page_folio(page);
/*
- * Since we already hold refcount on the
- * large folio, this should never fail.
+ * Grabbing more references can fail once we
+ * hit folio refcount limits.
*/
- if (try_grab_folio(folio, page_increm - 1,
- gup_flags)) {
+ ret = try_grab_folio(folio, page_increm - 1,
+ gup_flags);
+ if (ret) {
/*
- * Release the 1st page ref if the
- * folio is problematic, fail hard.
+ * Release the folio reference we
+ * already took.
*/
gup_put_folio(folio, 1, gup_flags);
- ret = -EFAULT;
goto out;
}
}
@@ -3538,10 +3544,10 @@ long memfd_pin_folios(struct file *memfd, loff_t start, loff_t end,
break;
}
- if (try_grab_folio(folio, 1, FOLL_PIN)) {
+ ret = try_grab_folio(folio, 1, FOLL_PIN);
+ if (ret) {
folio_unlock(folio);
folio_batch_release(&fbatch);
- ret = -EINVAL;
goto err;
}
diff --git a/mm/util.c b/mm/util.c
index a906dfa755ff1..f2c6b222e3ef7 100644
--- a/mm/util.c
+++ b/mm/util.c
@@ -798,6 +798,9 @@ bool __folio_ref_count_over_limit(unsigned int ref_count)
/* Background threads must not consume admin reserves. */
if (current->flags & PF_KTHREAD)
return true;
+ /* Capability checks are not safe with IRQs disabled. */
+ if (irqs_disabled())
+ return true;
/* Use the task's credentials, which filesystem overrides cannot change. */
return !has_capability_noaudit(current, CAP_SYS_RESOURCE);
}
--
2.56.0
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread