Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] mm/page_alloc: fix initialization of tags of the huge zero folio with init_on_free

From: Lance Yang <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2026 10:47:33 +0800

On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 05:39:07PM +0200, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
>__GFP_ZEROTAGS semantics are currently a bit weird, but effectively this
>flag is only ever set alongside __GFP_ZERO and __GFP_SKIP_KASAN.
>
>If we run with init_on_free, we will zero out pages during
>__free_pages_prepare(), to skip zeroing on the allocation path.
>
>However, when allocating with __GFP_ZEROTAG set, post_alloc_hook() will
>consequently not only skip clearing page content, but also skip
>clearing tag memory.
>
>Not clearing tags through __GFP_ZEROTAGS is irrelevant for most pages that
>will get mapped to user space through set_pte_at() later: set_pte_at() and
>friends will detect that the tags have not been initialized yet
>(PG_mte_tagged not set), and initialize them.
>
>However, for the huge zero folio, which will be mapped through a PMD
>marked as special, this initialization will not be performed, ending up
>exposing whatever tags were still set for the pages.
>
>The docs (Documentation/arch/arm64/memory-tagging-extension.rst) state
>that allocation tags are set to 0 when a page is first mapped to user
>space. That no longer holds with the huge zero folio when init_on_free
>is enabled.
>
>Fix it by decoupling __GFP_ZEROTAGS from __GFP_ZERO, passing to
>tag_clear_highpages() whether we want to also clear page content.
>
>Invert the meaning of the tag_clear_highpages() return value to have
>clearer semantics.
>
>Reproduced with the huge zero folio by modifying the check_buffer_fill
>arm64/mte selftest to use a 2 MiB area, after making sure that pages have
>a non-0 tag set when freeing (note that, during boot, we will not
>actually initialize tags, but only set KASAN_TAG_KERNEL in the page
>flags).
>
>	$ ./check_buffer_fill
>	1..20
>	...
>	not ok 17 Check initial tags with private mapping, sync error mode and mmap memory
>	not ok 18 Check initial tags with private mapping, sync error mode and mmap/mprotect memory
>	...
>
>This code needs more cleanups; we'll tackle that next, like
>decoupling __GFP_ZEROTAGS from __GFP_SKIP_KASAN.
>
>Fixes: adfb6609c680 ("mm/huge_memory: initialise the tags of the huge zero folio")
>Cc: [email-masked]
>Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <[email-masked]>
>---

Tested this fix on MTE with both kasan=on and kasan=off. Works as
expected in both cases.

Nothing jumped out at me, LGTM!

Tested-by: Lance Yang <[email-masked]>