mm/vmalloc: extract vm_area_free_pages() helper from vfree()
Patch series "mm/vmalloc: free unused pages on vrealloc() shrink", v14.
This series implements the TODO in vrealloc() to unmap and free unused
pages when shrinking across a page boundary.
Problem:
When vrealloc() shrinks an allocation, it updates bookkeeping
(requested_size, KASAN shadow) but does not free the underlying physical
pages. This wastes memory for the lifetime of the allocation.
Solution:
- Patch 1: Extracts a vm_area_free_pages(vm, start_idx, end_idx) helper
from vfree() that frees a range of pages with memcg and nr_vmalloc_pages
accounting. Freed page pointers are set to NULL to prevent stale
references.
- Patch 2: Update the grow-in-place check in vrealloc() to compare the
requested size against the actual physical page count (vm->nr_pages)
rather than the virtual area sizes. This is a prerequisite for shrinking.
- Patch 3: For VM_ALLOC areas in vread_iter(), derive the vm area size
from vm->nr_pages rather than get_vm_area_size(), which would
overestimate the mapped range after a shrink. Other mapping types
(vmap, ioremap) don't set nr_pages and keep using get_vm_area_size().
- Patch 4: Uses the helper to free tail pages when vrealloc() shrinks
across a page boundary.
- Patch 5: Adds a vrealloc test case to lib/test_vmalloc that exercises
grow-realloc, shrink-across-boundary, shrink-within-page, and
grow-in-place paths.
The virtual address reservation is kept intact to preserve the range for
potential future grow-in-place support. A concrete user is the Rust
binder driver's KVVec::shrink_to [1], which performs explicit vrealloc()
shrinks for memory reclamation.
This patch (of 5):
Extract page freeing and NR_VMALLOC stat accounting from vfree() into a
reusable vm_area_free_pages() helper. The helper operates on a range
[start_idx, end_idx) of pages from a vm_struct, making it suitable for
both full free (vfree) and partial free (upcoming vrealloc shrink).
Freed page pointers in vm->pages[] are set to NULL to prevent stale
references when the vm_struct outlives the free (as in vrealloc shrink).
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20260519-vmalloc-shrink-v14-0-70b96ee3e9c9@zohomail.in
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20260519-vmalloc-shrink-v14-1-70b96ee3e9c9@zohomail.in
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260216-binder-shrink-vec-v3-v6-0-ece8e8593e53@zohomail.in/
Signed-off-by: Shivam Kalra <shivamkalra98@zohomail.in>
Reviewed-by: Uladzislau Rezki (Sony) <urezki@gmail.com>
Cc: Alice Ryhl <aliceryhl@google.com>
Cc: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>