FAILED: patch "[PATCH] mm/ptdump: always stabilise against page table freeing using" failed to apply to 6.12-stable tree

The patch below does not apply to the 6.12-stable tree.
If someone wants it applied there, or to any other stable or longterm
tree, then please email the backport, including the original git commit
id to <[email protected]>.

To reproduce the conflict and resubmit, you may use the following commands:

git fetch https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/ linux-6.12.y
git checkout FETCH_HEAD
git cherry-pick -x 27c32e5538344b13c1505a08861e04620c125d47
# <resolve conflicts, build, test, etc.>
git commit -s
git send-email --to '<[email protected]>' --in-reply-to '2026081755-wanting-ended-b457@gregkh' --subject-prefix 'PATCH 6.12.y' 'HEAD^..'

Possible dependencies:



thanks,

greg k-h

------------------ original commit in Linus's tree ------------------

From 27c32e5538344b13c1505a08861e04620c125d47 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: "Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)" <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2026 16:16:34 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] mm/ptdump: always stabilise against page table freeing using
 init_mm

Previous commits have established the invariant that kernel page table
freeing is performed while an mmap read lock on init_mm is held, which
fixes races between ptdump and kernel page table freeing over init_mm.

However, x86 and arm64 can perform a ptdump over an mm other than init_mm
via ptdump_walk_pgd() and since kernel memory ranges are shared across
non-kernel mm's, this means that the race still exists for these cases.

Fix this by acquiring a nested mmap write lock for init_mm in
ptdump_walk_pgd().

This is safe as we take this after mmap write locking the mm, and nothing
acquires the init_mm lock first before locking an arbitrary mm, so no
deadlock is possible.

Also update walk_page_range_debug() to assert that init_mm is write
locked, add a comment explaining why and remove some redundant code, and
eliminate the unnecessary and confusing invocation of
walk_kernel_page_table_range().

We can safely remove the non-NULL check for walk.mm, as the mmap lock
asserts would NULL pointer deref if it was (and of course no callers do
this).

The first point at which ptdump can race kernel page table freeing is
commit b6bdb7517c3d ("mm/vmalloc: add interfaces to free unmapped page
table"), so we target this in the Fixes tag.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/[email protected]
Fixes: b6bdb7517c3d ("mm/vmalloc: add interfaces to free unmapped page table")
Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Mike Rapoport (Microsoft) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Kiryl Shutsemau <[email protected]>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <[email protected]>
Cc: "Borah, Chaitanya Kumar" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Borislav Petkov (AMD)" <[email protected]>
Cc: Catalin Marinas <[email protected]>
Cc: Dave Hansen <[email protected]>
Cc: David Carlier <[email protected]>
Cc: Dev Jain <[email protected]>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <[email protected]>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <[email protected]>
Cc: Liam R. Howlett <[email protected]>
Cc: Michal Hocko <[email protected]>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <[email protected]>
Cc: Ryan Roberts <[email protected]>
Cc: Shakeel Butt <[email protected]>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <[email protected]>
Cc: Toshi Kani <[email protected]>
Cc: "Uladzislau Rezki (Sony)" <[email protected]>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <[email protected]>
Cc: Will Deacon <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>

diff --git a/mm/pagewalk.c b/mm/pagewalk.c
index bbcfd68d0907..5d87c632a255 100644
--- a/mm/pagewalk.c
+++ b/mm/pagewalk.c
@@ -702,12 +702,16 @@ int walk_page_range_debug(struct mm_struct *mm, unsigned long start,
 	 * to account for page table freeing on vmap huge page mapping.
 	 */
 	mmap_assert_write_locked(mm);
+	/*
+	 * x86, arm64 ptdump allow walks of efi mm's and x86 ptdump allows walks
+	 * of arbitrary mm's.
+	 *
+	 * However, they both must also hold the init_mm lock to account for
+	 * concurrent kernel page table freeing.
+	 */
+	mmap_assert_write_locked(&init_mm);
 
-	/* For convenience, we allow traversal of kernel mappings. */
-	if (mm == &init_mm)
-		return walk_kernel_page_table_range(start, end, ops,
-						    pgd, private);
-	if (start >= end || !walk.mm)
+	if (start >= end)
 		return -EINVAL;
 	if (!check_ops_safe(ops))
 		return -EINVAL;
diff --git a/mm/ptdump.c b/mm/ptdump.c
index 973020000096..5851096e6f65 100644
--- a/mm/ptdump.c
+++ b/mm/ptdump.c
@@ -178,11 +178,18 @@ void ptdump_walk_pgd(struct ptdump_state *st, struct mm_struct *mm, pgd_t *pgd)
 
 	get_online_mems();
 	mmap_write_lock(mm);
+	/* To stabilise kernel page tables we must hold the init_mm lock too. */
+	if (mm != &init_mm)
+		mmap_write_lock_nested(&init_mm, SINGLE_DEPTH_NESTING);
+
 	while (range->start != range->end) {
 		walk_page_range_debug(mm, range->start, range->end,
 				      &ptdump_ops, pgd, st);
 		range++;
 	}
+
+	if (mm != &init_mm)
+		mmap_write_unlock(&init_mm);
 	mmap_write_unlock(mm);
 	put_online_mems();