[PATCH 0/5] mm: add basic PTE const type-safety
From: Pedro Falcato <pfalcato@suse.de>
Date: 2026-07-24 10:20:34
Also in:
linux-arm-kernel, linux-fsdevel, linux-mm, lkml
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/20260526-kpkeys-v8-0-eaaacdacc67c@arm.com/#t (local) [0] Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com> Cc: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org> Cc: "James E.J. Bottomley" <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> Cc: Helge Deller <deller@gmx.de> Cc: Madhavan Srinivasan <maddy@linux.ibm.com> Cc: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au> Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org> Cc: "Liam R. Howlett" <liam@infradead.org> Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org> Cc: Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org> Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com> Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com> Cc: "Matthew Wilcox (Oracle)" <willy@infradead.org> Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz> Cc: Zi Yan <ziy@nvidia.com> Cc: Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com> Cc: Nico Pache <redacted> Cc: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com> Cc: Dev Jain <dev.jain@arm.com> Cc: Barry Song <baohua@kernel.org> Cc: Lance Yang <lance.yang@linux.dev> Cc: Usama Arif <usama.arif@linux.dev> Cc: Kevin Brodsky <redacted> Cc: Muhammad Usama Anjum <redacted> Cc: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: linux-parisc@vger.kernel.org Cc: linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org Cc: linux-mm@kvack.org Cc: linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org Pedro Falcato (5): mm: constify generic pte_get*() mm/arm64: constify pte_get*() and contpte get logic mm/parisc: constify ptep_get() argument mm/powerpc/8xx: constify ptep_get() argument mm: constify the pte_offset_map_ro_nolock() return value arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h | 10 +++++----- arch/arm64/mm/contpte.c | 4 ++-- arch/parisc/include/asm/pgtable.h | 2 +- arch/powerpc/include/asm/nohash/32/pte-8xx.h | 2 +- arch/powerpc/mm/pgtable.c | 2 +- include/linux/mm.h | 4 ++-- include/linux/pgtable.h | 8 ++++---- mm/filemap.c | 2 +- mm/khugepaged.c | 2 +- mm/pgtable-generic.c | 4 ++-- 10 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-) -- 2.55.0