On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 1:36 AM Coly Li [off-list ref] wrote:

The original problem was from nvme-over-tcp code, who mistakenly uses
kernel_sendpage() to send pages allocated by __get_free_pages() without
__GFP_COMP flag. Such pages don't have refcount (page_count is 0) on
tail pages, sending them by kernel_sendpage() may trigger a kernel panic
from a corrupted kernel heap, because these pages are incorrectly freed
in network stack as page_count 0 pages.

This patch introduces a helper sendpage_ok(), it returns true if the
checking page,
- is not slab page: PageSlab(page) is false.
- has page refcount: page_count(page) is not zero

All drivers who want to send page to remote end by kernel_sendpage()
may use this helper to check whether the page is OK. If the helper does
not return true, the driver should try other non sendpage method (e.g.
sock_no_sendpage()) to handle the page.

Can we leave this helper to mm subsystem?

I know it is for sendpage, but its implementation is all about some
mm details and its two callers do not belong to net subsystem either.

Think this in another way: who would fix it if it is buggy? I bet mm people
should. ;)

Thanks.