Re: [PATCH 1/3] Fix COW D-cache aliasing on fork

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Ralf Baechle wrote:
From: Atsushi Nemoto <[email protected]>

Problem:

1. There is a process containing two thread (T1 and T2).  The
   thread T1 calls fork().  Then dup_mmap() function called on T1 context.

static inline int dup_mmap(struct mm_struct *mm, struct mm_struct *oldmm)
	...
	flush_cache_mm(current->mm);
	...	/* A */
	(write-protect all Copy-On-Write pages)
	...	/* B */
	flush_tlb_mm(current->mm);
	...

2. When preemption happens between A and B (or on SMP kernel), the
   thread T2 can run and modify data on COW pages without page fault
   (modified data will stay in cache).

3. Some time after fork() completed, the thread T2 may cause a page
   fault by write-protect on a COW page.

4. Then data of the COW page will be copied to newly allocated
   physical page (copy_cow_page()).  It reads data via kernel mapping.
   The kernel mapping can have different 'color' with user space
   mapping of the thread T2 (dcache aliasing).  Therefore
   copy_cow_page() will copy stale data.  Then the modified data in
   cache will be lost.

What about if you just flush the caches after write protecting all
COW pages? Would that work? Simpler? Better performance? (I don't know)

--
SUSE Labs, Novell Inc.
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