diff mbox series

[v2] mm: improve mprotect(R|W) efficiency on pages referenced once

Message ID 20201230004134.1185017-1-pcc@google.com (mailing list archive)
State New, archived
Headers show
Series [v2] mm: improve mprotect(R|W) efficiency on pages referenced once | expand

Commit Message

Peter Collingbourne Dec. 30, 2020, 12:41 a.m. UTC
In the Scudo memory allocator [1] we would like to be able to
detect use-after-free vulnerabilities involving large allocations
by issuing mprotect(PROT_NONE) on the memory region used for the
allocation when it is deallocated. Later on, after the memory
region has been "quarantined" for a sufficient period of time we
would like to be able to use it for another allocation by issuing
mprotect(PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE).

Before this patch, after removing the write protection, any writes
to the memory region would result in page faults and entering
the copy-on-write code path, even in the usual case where the
pages are only referenced by a single PTE, harming performance
unnecessarily. Make it so that any pages in anonymous mappings that
are only referenced by a single PTE are immediately made writable
during the mprotect so that we can avoid the page faults.

This program shows the critical syscall sequence that we intend to
use in the allocator:

  #include <string.h>
  #include <sys/mman.h>

  enum { kSize = 131072 };

  int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    char *addr = (char *)mmap(0, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
                              MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, -1, 0);
    for (int i = 0; i != 100000; ++i) {
      memset(addr, i, kSize);
      mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_NONE);
      mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE);
    }
  }

The effect of this patch on the above program was measured on a
DragonBoard 845c by taking the median real time execution time of
10 runs.

Before: 3.19s
After:  0.79s

The effect was also measured using one of the microbenchmarks that
we normally use to benchmark the allocator [2], after modifying it
to make the appropriate mprotect calls [3]. With an allocation size
of 131072 bytes to trigger the allocator's "large allocation" code
path the per-iteration time was measured as follows:

Before: 33364ns
After:   6886ns

This patch means that we do more work during the mprotect call itself
in exchange for less work when the pages are accessed. In the worst
case, the pages are not accessed at all. The effect of this patch in
such cases was measured using the following program:

  #include <string.h>
  #include <sys/mman.h>

  enum { kSize = 131072 };

  int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    char *addr = (char *)mmap(0, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
                              MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, -1, 0);
    memset(addr, 1, kSize);
    for (int i = 0; i != 100000; ++i) {
  #ifdef PAGE_FAULT
      memset(addr + (i * 4096) % kSize, i, 4096);
  #endif
      mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_NONE);
      mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE);
    }
  }

With PAGE_FAULT undefined (0 pages touched after removing write
protection) the median real time execution time of 100 runs was
measured as follows:

Before: 0.325928s
After:  0.365493s

With PAGE_FAULT defined (1 page touched) the measurements were
as follows:

Before: 0.441516s
After:  0.380251s

So it seems that even with a single page fault the new approach
is faster.

I saw similar results if I adjusted the programs to use a larger
mapping size. With kSize = 1048576 I get these numbers with PAGE_FAULT
undefined:

Before: 1.563078s
After:  1.607476s

i.e. around 3%.

And these with PAGE_FAULT defined:

Before: 1.684663s
After:  1.683272s

i.e. about the same.

What I think we may conclude from these results is that for smaller
mappings the advantage of the previous approach, although measurable,
is wiped out by a single page fault. I think we may expect that there
should be at least one access resulting in a page fault (under the
previous approach) after making the pages writable, since the program
presumably made the pages writable for a reason.

For larger mappings we may guesstimate that the new approach wins if
the density of future page faults is > 0.4%. But for the mappings that
are large enough for density to matter (not just the absolute number
of page faults) it doesn't seem like the increase in mprotect latency
would be very large relative to the total mprotect execution time.

Signed-off-by: Peter Collingbourne <pcc@google.com>
Link: https://linux-review.googlesource.com/id/I98d75ef90e20330c578871c87494d64b1df3f1b8
Link: [1] https://source.android.com/devices/tech/debug/scudo
Link: [2] https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/+/master:bionic/benchmarks/stdlib_benchmark.cpp;l=53;drc=e8693e78711e8f45ccd2b610e4dbe0b94d551cc9
Link: [3] https://github.com/pcc/llvm-project/commit/scudo-mprotect-secondary
---
 mm/mprotect.c | 6 ++++++
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)

Comments

Peter Collingbourne Jan. 19, 2021, 5:17 p.m. UTC | #1
On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 4:41 PM Peter Collingbourne <pcc@google.com> wrote:
>
> In the Scudo memory allocator [1] we would like to be able to
> detect use-after-free vulnerabilities involving large allocations
> by issuing mprotect(PROT_NONE) on the memory region used for the
> allocation when it is deallocated. Later on, after the memory
> region has been "quarantined" for a sufficient period of time we
> would like to be able to use it for another allocation by issuing
> mprotect(PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE).
>
> Before this patch, after removing the write protection, any writes
> to the memory region would result in page faults and entering
> the copy-on-write code path, even in the usual case where the
> pages are only referenced by a single PTE, harming performance
> unnecessarily. Make it so that any pages in anonymous mappings that
> are only referenced by a single PTE are immediately made writable
> during the mprotect so that we can avoid the page faults.
>
> This program shows the critical syscall sequence that we intend to
> use in the allocator:
>
>   #include <string.h>
>   #include <sys/mman.h>
>
>   enum { kSize = 131072 };
>
>   int main(int argc, char **argv) {
>     char *addr = (char *)mmap(0, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
>                               MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, -1, 0);
>     for (int i = 0; i != 100000; ++i) {
>       memset(addr, i, kSize);
>       mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_NONE);
>       mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE);
>     }
>   }
>
> The effect of this patch on the above program was measured on a
> DragonBoard 845c by taking the median real time execution time of
> 10 runs.
>
> Before: 3.19s
> After:  0.79s
>
> The effect was also measured using one of the microbenchmarks that
> we normally use to benchmark the allocator [2], after modifying it
> to make the appropriate mprotect calls [3]. With an allocation size
> of 131072 bytes to trigger the allocator's "large allocation" code
> path the per-iteration time was measured as follows:
>
> Before: 33364ns
> After:   6886ns
>
> This patch means that we do more work during the mprotect call itself
> in exchange for less work when the pages are accessed. In the worst
> case, the pages are not accessed at all. The effect of this patch in
> such cases was measured using the following program:
>
>   #include <string.h>
>   #include <sys/mman.h>
>
>   enum { kSize = 131072 };
>
>   int main(int argc, char **argv) {
>     char *addr = (char *)mmap(0, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
>                               MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, -1, 0);
>     memset(addr, 1, kSize);
>     for (int i = 0; i != 100000; ++i) {
>   #ifdef PAGE_FAULT
>       memset(addr + (i * 4096) % kSize, i, 4096);
>   #endif
>       mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_NONE);
>       mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE);
>     }
>   }
>
> With PAGE_FAULT undefined (0 pages touched after removing write
> protection) the median real time execution time of 100 runs was
> measured as follows:
>
> Before: 0.325928s
> After:  0.365493s
>
> With PAGE_FAULT defined (1 page touched) the measurements were
> as follows:
>
> Before: 0.441516s
> After:  0.380251s
>
> So it seems that even with a single page fault the new approach
> is faster.
>
> I saw similar results if I adjusted the programs to use a larger
> mapping size. With kSize = 1048576 I get these numbers with PAGE_FAULT
> undefined:
>
> Before: 1.563078s
> After:  1.607476s
>
> i.e. around 3%.
>
> And these with PAGE_FAULT defined:
>
> Before: 1.684663s
> After:  1.683272s
>
> i.e. about the same.
>
> What I think we may conclude from these results is that for smaller
> mappings the advantage of the previous approach, although measurable,
> is wiped out by a single page fault. I think we may expect that there
> should be at least one access resulting in a page fault (under the
> previous approach) after making the pages writable, since the program
> presumably made the pages writable for a reason.
>
> For larger mappings we may guesstimate that the new approach wins if
> the density of future page faults is > 0.4%. But for the mappings that
> are large enough for density to matter (not just the absolute number
> of page faults) it doesn't seem like the increase in mprotect latency
> would be very large relative to the total mprotect execution time.
>
> Signed-off-by: Peter Collingbourne <pcc@google.com>
> Link: https://linux-review.googlesource.com/id/I98d75ef90e20330c578871c87494d64b1df3f1b8
> Link: [1] https://source.android.com/devices/tech/debug/scudo
> Link: [2] https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/+/master:bionic/benchmarks/stdlib_benchmark.cpp;l=53;drc=e8693e78711e8f45ccd2b610e4dbe0b94d551cc9
> Link: [3] https://github.com/pcc/llvm-project/commit/scudo-mprotect-secondary

Hi Andrew,

We had some test failures on Android that were tracked down to this
patch, so it should probably be backed out of -mm until the problem is
resolved.

Peter
Peter Collingbourne April 29, 2021, 9:44 p.m. UTC | #2
On Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 9:17 AM Peter Collingbourne <pcc@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 4:41 PM Peter Collingbourne <pcc@google.com> wrote:
> >
> > In the Scudo memory allocator [1] we would like to be able to
> > detect use-after-free vulnerabilities involving large allocations
> > by issuing mprotect(PROT_NONE) on the memory region used for the
> > allocation when it is deallocated. Later on, after the memory
> > region has been "quarantined" for a sufficient period of time we
> > would like to be able to use it for another allocation by issuing
> > mprotect(PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE).
> >
> > Before this patch, after removing the write protection, any writes
> > to the memory region would result in page faults and entering
> > the copy-on-write code path, even in the usual case where the
> > pages are only referenced by a single PTE, harming performance
> > unnecessarily. Make it so that any pages in anonymous mappings that
> > are only referenced by a single PTE are immediately made writable
> > during the mprotect so that we can avoid the page faults.
> >
> > This program shows the critical syscall sequence that we intend to
> > use in the allocator:
> >
> >   #include <string.h>
> >   #include <sys/mman.h>
> >
> >   enum { kSize = 131072 };
> >
> >   int main(int argc, char **argv) {
> >     char *addr = (char *)mmap(0, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
> >                               MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, -1, 0);
> >     for (int i = 0; i != 100000; ++i) {
> >       memset(addr, i, kSize);
> >       mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_NONE);
> >       mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE);
> >     }
> >   }
> >
> > The effect of this patch on the above program was measured on a
> > DragonBoard 845c by taking the median real time execution time of
> > 10 runs.
> >
> > Before: 3.19s
> > After:  0.79s
> >
> > The effect was also measured using one of the microbenchmarks that
> > we normally use to benchmark the allocator [2], after modifying it
> > to make the appropriate mprotect calls [3]. With an allocation size
> > of 131072 bytes to trigger the allocator's "large allocation" code
> > path the per-iteration time was measured as follows:
> >
> > Before: 33364ns
> > After:   6886ns
> >
> > This patch means that we do more work during the mprotect call itself
> > in exchange for less work when the pages are accessed. In the worst
> > case, the pages are not accessed at all. The effect of this patch in
> > such cases was measured using the following program:
> >
> >   #include <string.h>
> >   #include <sys/mman.h>
> >
> >   enum { kSize = 131072 };
> >
> >   int main(int argc, char **argv) {
> >     char *addr = (char *)mmap(0, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
> >                               MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, -1, 0);
> >     memset(addr, 1, kSize);
> >     for (int i = 0; i != 100000; ++i) {
> >   #ifdef PAGE_FAULT
> >       memset(addr + (i * 4096) % kSize, i, 4096);
> >   #endif
> >       mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_NONE);
> >       mprotect((void *)addr, kSize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE);
> >     }
> >   }
> >
> > With PAGE_FAULT undefined (0 pages touched after removing write
> > protection) the median real time execution time of 100 runs was
> > measured as follows:
> >
> > Before: 0.325928s
> > After:  0.365493s
> >
> > With PAGE_FAULT defined (1 page touched) the measurements were
> > as follows:
> >
> > Before: 0.441516s
> > After:  0.380251s
> >
> > So it seems that even with a single page fault the new approach
> > is faster.
> >
> > I saw similar results if I adjusted the programs to use a larger
> > mapping size. With kSize = 1048576 I get these numbers with PAGE_FAULT
> > undefined:
> >
> > Before: 1.563078s
> > After:  1.607476s
> >
> > i.e. around 3%.
> >
> > And these with PAGE_FAULT defined:
> >
> > Before: 1.684663s
> > After:  1.683272s
> >
> > i.e. about the same.
> >
> > What I think we may conclude from these results is that for smaller
> > mappings the advantage of the previous approach, although measurable,
> > is wiped out by a single page fault. I think we may expect that there
> > should be at least one access resulting in a page fault (under the
> > previous approach) after making the pages writable, since the program
> > presumably made the pages writable for a reason.
> >
> > For larger mappings we may guesstimate that the new approach wins if
> > the density of future page faults is > 0.4%. But for the mappings that
> > are large enough for density to matter (not just the absolute number
> > of page faults) it doesn't seem like the increase in mprotect latency
> > would be very large relative to the total mprotect execution time.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Peter Collingbourne <pcc@google.com>
> > Link: https://linux-review.googlesource.com/id/I98d75ef90e20330c578871c87494d64b1df3f1b8
> > Link: [1] https://source.android.com/devices/tech/debug/scudo
> > Link: [2] https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/+/master:bionic/benchmarks/stdlib_benchmark.cpp;l=53;drc=e8693e78711e8f45ccd2b610e4dbe0b94d551cc9
> > Link: [3] https://github.com/pcc/llvm-project/commit/scudo-mprotect-secondary
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> We had some test failures on Android that were tracked down to this
> patch, so it should probably be backed out of -mm until the problem is
> resolved.

I was finally able to find some time to debug this. The issue turned
out to be caused by a missing check that the page is dirty, as in the
previous if statement. This at least seems necessary in order to
ensure that softdirty continues to be handled correctly. My fix was to
merge the check into the previous if statement, and with that I ran
the same Android test suite that failed last time and didn't see any
failures. I also reran my performance measurements, and they are in
line with what I previously measured. I will post a v3 with the fix
and the new measurement results.

Peter
diff mbox series

Patch

diff --git a/mm/mprotect.c b/mm/mprotect.c
index ab709023e9aa..1f10e041a197 100644
--- a/mm/mprotect.c
+++ b/mm/mprotect.c
@@ -47,6 +47,8 @@  static unsigned long change_pte_range(struct vm_area_struct *vma, pmd_t *pmd,
 	bool prot_numa = cp_flags & MM_CP_PROT_NUMA;
 	bool uffd_wp = cp_flags & MM_CP_UFFD_WP;
 	bool uffd_wp_resolve = cp_flags & MM_CP_UFFD_WP_RESOLVE;
+	bool anon_writable =
+		vma_is_anonymous(vma) && (vma->vm_flags & VM_WRITE);
 
 	/*
 	 * Can be called with only the mmap_lock for reading by
@@ -136,7 +138,11 @@  static unsigned long change_pte_range(struct vm_area_struct *vma, pmd_t *pmd,
 					(pte_soft_dirty(ptent) ||
 					 !(vma->vm_flags & VM_SOFTDIRTY))) {
 				ptent = pte_mkwrite(ptent);
+			} else if (anon_writable &&
+				   page_mapcount(pte_page(ptent)) == 1) {
+				ptent = pte_mkwrite(ptent);
 			}
+
 			ptep_modify_prot_commit(vma, addr, pte, oldpte, ptent);
 			pages++;
 		} else if (is_swap_pte(oldpte)) {