Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 4/4] KVM: mmu: remove over-aggressive warnings

From: Sean Christopherson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 19:22:03 +0000

On Mon, Nov 29, 2021, David Stevens wrote:
> From: David Stevens <[email-masked]>
> 
> Remove two warnings that require ref counts for pages to be non-zero, as
> mapped pfns from follow_pfn may not have an initialized ref count.
> 
> Signed-off-by: David Stevens <[email-masked]>
> ---
>  arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c | 7 -------
>  virt/kvm/kvm_main.c    | 2 +-
>  2 files changed, 1 insertion(+), 8 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
> index 0626395ff1d9..7c4c7fededf0 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
> +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
> @@ -621,13 +621,6 @@ static int mmu_spte_clear_track_bits(struct kvm *kvm, u64 *sptep)
>  
>  	pfn = spte_to_pfn(old_spte);
>  
> -	/*
> -	 * KVM does not hold the refcount of the page used by
> -	 * kvm mmu, before reclaiming the page, we should
> -	 * unmap it from mmu first.
> -	 */
> -	WARN_ON(!kvm_is_reserved_pfn(pfn) && !page_count(pfn_to_page(pfn)));
> -
>  	if (is_accessed_spte(old_spte))
>  		kvm_set_pfn_accessed(pfn);
>  
> diff --git a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
> index 16a8a71f20bf..d81edcb3e107 100644
> --- a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
> +++ b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
> @@ -170,7 +170,7 @@ bool kvm_is_zone_device_pfn(kvm_pfn_t pfn)
>  	 * the device has been pinned, e.g. by get_user_pages().  WARN if the
>  	 * page_count() is zero to help detect bad usage of this helper.

Stale comment.

>  	 */
> -	if (!pfn_valid(pfn) || WARN_ON_ONCE(!page_count(pfn_to_page(pfn))))
> +	if (!pfn_valid(pfn) || !page_count(pfn_to_page(pfn)))

Hrm, I know the whole point of this series is to support pages without an elevated
refcount, but this WARN was extremely helpful in catching several use-after-free
bugs in the TDP MMU.  We talked about burying a slow check behind MMU_WARN_ON, but
that isn't very helpful because no one runs with MMU_WARN_ON, and this is also a
type of check that's most useful if it runs in production.

IIUC, this series explicitly disallows using pfns that have a struct page without
refcounting, and the issue with the WARN here is that kvm_is_zone_device_pfn() is
called by kvm_is_reserved_pfn() before ensure_pfn_ref() rejects problematic pages,
i.e. triggers false positive.

So, can't we preserve the use-after-free benefits of the check by moving it to
where KVM releases the PFN?  I.e.

diff --git a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
index fbca2e232e94..675b835525fa 100644
--- a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
+++ b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
@@ -2904,15 +2904,19 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kvm_release_pfn_dirty);

 void kvm_set_pfn_dirty(kvm_pfn_t pfn)
 {
-       if (!kvm_is_reserved_pfn(pfn) && !kvm_is_zone_device_pfn(pfn))
+       if (!kvm_is_reserved_pfn(pfn) && !kvm_is_zone_device_pfn(pfn)) {
+               WARN_ON_ONCE(!page_count(pfn_to_page(pfn)));
                SetPageDirty(pfn_to_page(pfn));
+       }
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kvm_set_pfn_dirty);

 void kvm_set_pfn_accessed(kvm_pfn_t pfn)
 {
-       if (!kvm_is_reserved_pfn(pfn) && !kvm_is_zone_device_pfn(pfn))
+       if (!kvm_is_reserved_pfn(pfn) && !kvm_is_zone_device_pfn(pfn)) {
+               WARN_ON_ONCE(!page_count(pfn_to_page(pfn)));
                mark_page_accessed(pfn_to_page(pfn));
+       }
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kvm_set_pfn_accessed);

In a way, that's even better than the current check as it makes it more obvious
that the WARN is due to a use-after-free.

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