[PATCH v2 0/6] mm: add basic PTE const type-safety

Pedro Falcato <[email protected]> Mon, 3 Aug 2026 17:43:54 +0100
Newsgroups org.ozlabs.lists.linuxppc-dev,org.infradead.lists.linux-arm-kernel,org.kernel.vger.linux-fsdevel,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel,org.kernel.vger.linux-parisc,org.kvack.linux-mm
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Since forever, MM code has thrown pte_t * around with no concern for const
safety, or typesafety of any kind. This is confusing. Attempt to address it
by:
1) Making sure pte_get*() helpers can cope with const pte_t * arguments
2) Constifying the pte_offset_map_ro_nolock() return type, which by definition
already pledges that users will not write to it.

These two simple steps were already able to uncover code smell from
khugepaged + do_swap_page().

Separate steps could include introducing pte_offset_map_ro_lock() for more
widespread usage of this.

Benefits of this include less confusion and better type-safety. It could also
futurely aid in efforts such as [0] which may want semantic annotation of these
accesses.

Based on mm-unstable and compile-tested on a handful of architectures.

No functional changes intended.

[CC list editorially trimmed for brevity reasons; apologies if you're not on it]

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/[email protected]/#t [0]
Cc: Catalin Marinas <[email protected]>
Cc: Will Deacon <[email protected]>
Cc: "James E.J. Bottomley" <[email protected]>
Cc: Helge Deller <[email protected]>
Cc: Madhavan Srinivasan <[email protected]>
Cc: Michael Ellerman <[email protected]>
Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes <[email protected]>
Cc: "Liam R. Howlett" <[email protected]>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <[email protected]>
Cc: Mike Rapoport <[email protected]>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <[email protected]>
Cc: Michal Hocko <[email protected]>
Cc: "Matthew Wilcox (Oracle)" <[email protected]>
Cc: Jan Kara <[email protected]>
Cc: Zi Yan <[email protected]>
Cc: Baolin Wang <[email protected]>
Cc: Nico Pache <[email protected]>
Cc: Ryan Roberts <[email protected]>
Cc: Dev Jain <[email protected]>
Cc: Barry Song <[email protected]>
Cc: Lance Yang <[email protected]>
Cc: Usama Arif <[email protected]>
Cc: Kevin Brodsky <[email protected]>
Cc: Muhammad Usama Anjum <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]

v2:
 - Small fixups on the arm64 side
 - Re-order patches in a way such that bisection is preserved
 - Pick up Helge's patch dropping parisc ptep_get()
 - Constify s390's ptep_get() as well

Helge Deller (1):
  parisc: Drop own implementations for ptep_get() and
    ptep_test_and_clear_young()

Pedro Falcato (5):
  mm/arm64: constify pte_get*() and contpte get logic
  mm/powerpc/8xx: constify ptep_get() argument
  mm/s390: constify ptep_get() argument
  mm: constify generic pte_get*()
  mm: constify the pte_offset_map_ro_nolock() return value

 arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h             | 10 +++++-----
 arch/arm64/mm/contpte.c                      | 11 ++++++++---
 arch/parisc/include/asm/pgtable.h            | 20 --------------------
 arch/powerpc/include/asm/nohash/32/pte-8xx.h |  2 +-
 arch/powerpc/mm/pgtable.c                    |  2 +-
 arch/s390/include/asm/pgtable.h              |  2 +-
 include/linux/mm.h                           |  4 ++--
 include/linux/pgtable.h                      |  8 ++++----
 mm/filemap.c                                 |  2 +-
 mm/khugepaged.c                              |  2 +-
 mm/pgtable-generic.c                         |  4 ++--
 11 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 41 deletions(-)

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2.55.0