Commit eaf4d22a authored by John Hubbard's avatar John Hubbard Committed by Linus Torvalds

docs: mm/gup: pin_user_pages.rst: add a "case 5"

Patch series "vhost, docs: convert to pin_user_pages(), new "case 5""

It recently became clear to me that there are some get_user_pages*()
callers that don't fit neatly into any of the four cases that are so far
listed in pin_user_pages.rst.  vhost.c is one of those.

Add a Case 5 to the documentation, and refer to that when converting
vhost.c.

Thanks to Jan Kara for helping me (again) in understanding the
interaction between get_user_pages() and page writeback [1].

This is based on today's mmotm, which has a nearby patch to
pin_user_pages.rst that rewords cases 3 and 4.

Note that I have only compile-tested the vhost.c patch, although that
does also include cross-compiling for a few other arches.  Any run-time
testing would be greatly appreciated.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200529070343.GL14550@quack2.suse.cz

This patch (of 2):

There are four cases listed in pin_user_pages.rst.  These are intended
to help developers figure out whether to use get_user_pages*(), or
pin_user_pages*().  However, the four cases do not cover all the
situations.  For example, drivers/vhost/vhost.c has a "pin, write to
page, set page dirty, unpin" case.

Add a fifth case, to help explain that there is a general pattern that
requires pin_user_pages*() API calls.

[jhubbard@nvidia.com: v2]
  Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200601052633.853874-2-jhubbard@nvidia.comSigned-off-by: default avatarJohn Hubbard <jhubbard@nvidia.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Jérôme Glisse <jglisse@redhat.com>
Cc: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Souptick Joarder <jrdr.linux@gmail.com>
Cc: "Michael S . Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>
Cc: Jason Wang <jasowang@redhat.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200529234309.484480-1-jhubbard@nvidia.com
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200529234309.484480-2-jhubbard@nvidia.comSigned-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
parent 6a005645
...@@ -171,6 +171,24 @@ If only struct page data (as opposed to the actual memory contents that a page ...@@ -171,6 +171,24 @@ If only struct page data (as opposed to the actual memory contents that a page
is tracking) is affected, then normal GUP calls are sufficient, and neither flag is tracking) is affected, then normal GUP calls are sufficient, and neither flag
needs to be set. needs to be set.
CASE 5: Pinning in order to write to the data within the page
-------------------------------------------------------------
Even though neither DMA nor Direct IO is involved, just a simple case of "pin,
write to a page's data, unpin" can cause a problem. Case 5 may be considered a
superset of Case 1, plus Case 2, plus anything that invokes that pattern. In
other words, if the code is neither Case 1 nor Case 2, it may still require
FOLL_PIN, for patterns like this:
Correct (uses FOLL_PIN calls):
pin_user_pages()
write to the data within the pages
unpin_user_pages()
INCORRECT (uses FOLL_GET calls):
get_user_pages()
write to the data within the pages
put_page()
page_maybe_dma_pinned(): the whole point of pinning page_maybe_dma_pinned(): the whole point of pinning
=================================================== ===================================================
......
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