Only select ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE on 64-bit x86. Page table sharing requires at least three levels because it involves shared references to PMD tables; 32-bit x86 has either two-level paging (without PAE) or three-level paging (with PAE), but even with three-level paging, having a dedicated PGD entry for hugetlb is only barely possible (because the PGD only has four entries), and it seems unlikely anyone's actually using PMD sharing on 32-bit.
Having ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE enabled on non-PAE 32-bit X86 (which has 2-level paging) became particularly problematic after commit 59d9094df3d7 ("mm: hugetlb: independent PMD page table shared count"), since that changes `struct ptdesc` such that the `pt_mm` (for PGDs) and the `pt_share_count` (for PMDs) share the same union storage - and with 2-level paging, PMDs are PGDs.
(For comparison, arm64 also gates ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE on the configuration of page tables such that it is never enabled with 2-level paging.)
Reported-by: Vitaly Chikunov vt@altlinux.org Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/r/srhpjxlqfna67blvma5frmy3aa@altlinux.org Suggested-by: Dave Hansen dave.hansen@intel.com Tested-by: Vitaly Chikunov vt@altlinux.org Fixes: cfe28c5d63d8 ("x86: mm: Remove x86 version of huge_pmd_share.") Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Jann Horn jannh@google.com --- I'm carrying over Vitaly Chikunov's "Tested-by" from v1.
Changes in v2: - disable it for 32-bit entirely (Dave Hansen) - Link to v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250630-x86-2level-hugetlb-v1-1-077cd53d8255@goog... --- arch/x86/Kconfig | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/arch/x86/Kconfig b/arch/x86/Kconfig index 71019b3b54ea..4e0fe688cc83 100644 --- a/arch/x86/Kconfig +++ b/arch/x86/Kconfig @@ -147,7 +147,7 @@ config X86 select ARCH_WANTS_DYNAMIC_TASK_STRUCT select ARCH_WANTS_NO_INSTR select ARCH_WANT_GENERAL_HUGETLB - select ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE + select ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE if X86_64 select ARCH_WANT_LD_ORPHAN_WARN select ARCH_WANT_OPTIMIZE_DAX_VMEMMAP if X86_64 select ARCH_WANT_OPTIMIZE_HUGETLB_VMEMMAP if X86_64
--- base-commit: d0b3b7b22dfa1f4b515fd3a295b3fd958f9e81af change-id: 20250630-x86-2level-hugetlb-b1d8feb255ce
On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 10:32:04AM +0200, Jann Horn wrote:
Only select ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE on 64-bit x86. Page table sharing requires at least three levels because it involves shared references to PMD tables; 32-bit x86 has either two-level paging (without PAE) or three-level paging (with PAE), but even with three-level paging, having a dedicated PGD entry for hugetlb is only barely possible (because the PGD only has four entries), and it seems unlikely anyone's actually using PMD sharing on 32-bit.
Having ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE enabled on non-PAE 32-bit X86 (which has 2-level paging) became particularly problematic after commit 59d9094df3d7 ("mm: hugetlb: independent PMD page table shared count"), since that changes `struct ptdesc` such that the `pt_mm` (for PGDs) and the `pt_share_count` (for PMDs) share the same union storage - and with 2-level paging, PMDs are PGDs.
(For comparison, arm64 also gates ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE on the configuration of page tables such that it is never enabled with 2-level paging.)
Reported-by: Vitaly Chikunov vt@altlinux.org Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/r/srhpjxlqfna67blvma5frmy3aa@altlinux.org Suggested-by: Dave Hansen dave.hansen@intel.com Tested-by: Vitaly Chikunov vt@altlinux.org Fixes: cfe28c5d63d8 ("x86: mm: Remove x86 version of huge_pmd_share.") Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Jann Horn jannh@google.com
Acked-by: Oscar Salvador osalvador@suse.de
Thanks!
On 02.07.25 10:32, Jann Horn wrote:
Only select ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE on 64-bit x86. Page table sharing requires at least three levels because it involves shared references to PMD tables; 32-bit x86 has either two-level paging (without PAE) or three-level paging (with PAE), but even with three-level paging, having a dedicated PGD entry for hugetlb is only barely possible (because the PGD only has four entries), and it seems unlikely anyone's actually using PMD sharing on 32-bit.
Having ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE enabled on non-PAE 32-bit X86 (which has 2-level paging) became particularly problematic after commit 59d9094df3d7 ("mm: hugetlb: independent PMD page table shared count"), since that changes `struct ptdesc` such that the `pt_mm` (for PGDs) and the `pt_share_count` (for PMDs) share the same union storage - and with 2-level paging, PMDs are PGDs.
(For comparison, arm64 also gates ARCH_WANT_HUGE_PMD_SHARE on the configuration of page tables such that it is never enabled with 2-level paging.)
Reported-by: Vitaly Chikunov vt@altlinux.org Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/r/srhpjxlqfna67blvma5frmy3aa@altlinux.org Suggested-by: Dave Hansen dave.hansen@intel.com Tested-by: Vitaly Chikunov vt@altlinux.org Fixes: cfe28c5d63d8 ("x86: mm: Remove x86 version of huge_pmd_share.") Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Jann Horn jannh@google.com
Acked-by: David Hildenbrand david@redhat.com
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