The comment in mmzone.h states that the alignment requirement is the minimum of PAGE_SHIFT and PFN_SECTION_SHIFT. However, the pointer arithmetic (mem_map - section_nr_to_pfn()) results in a byte offset scaled by sizeof(struct page). Thus, the actual alignment provided by the second term is PFN_SECTION_SHIFT + __ffs(sizeof(struct page)). Update the compile-time check and the mmzone.h comment to accurately reflect this mathematically guaranteed alignment by taking the minimum of PAGE_SHIFT and PFN_SECTION_SHIFT + __ffs(sizeof(struct page)). This avoids the issue of the check being overly restrictive on architectures like powerpc where PFN_SECTION_SHIFT alone is very small (e.g., 6). Also, remove the exhaustive per-architecture bit-width list from the comment; such details risk falling out of date over time and may inadvertently be left un-updated, while the existing BUILD_BUG_ON provides sufficient compile-time verification of the constraint. No runtime impact so far: SECTION_MAP_LAST_BIT happens to fit within the smaller limit on all existing architectures. Fixes: def9b71ee651 ("include/linux/mmzone.h: fix explanation of lower bits in the SPARSEMEM mem_map pointer") Signed-off-by: Muchun Song --- include/linux/mmzone.h | 24 +++++++++--------------- mm/sparse.c | 3 ++- 2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-) diff --git a/include/linux/mmzone.h b/include/linux/mmzone.h index 7bd0134c241c..584fa598ad75 100644 --- a/include/linux/mmzone.h +++ b/include/linux/mmzone.h @@ -2073,21 +2073,15 @@ static inline struct mem_section *__nr_to_section(unsigned long nr) extern size_t mem_section_usage_size(void); /* - * We use the lower bits of the mem_map pointer to store - * a little bit of information. The pointer is calculated - * as mem_map - section_nr_to_pfn(pnum). The result is - * aligned to the minimum alignment of the two values: - * 1. All mem_map arrays are page-aligned. - * 2. section_nr_to_pfn() always clears PFN_SECTION_SHIFT - * lowest bits. PFN_SECTION_SHIFT is arch-specific - * (equal SECTION_SIZE_BITS - PAGE_SHIFT), and the - * worst combination is powerpc with 256k pages, - * which results in PFN_SECTION_SHIFT equal 6. - * To sum it up, at least 6 bits are available on all architectures. - * However, we can exceed 6 bits on some other architectures except - * powerpc (e.g. 15 bits are available on x86_64, 13 bits are available - * with the worst case of 64K pages on arm64) if we make sure the - * exceeded bit is not applicable to powerpc. + * We use the lower bits of the mem_map pointer to store a little bit of + * information. The pointer is calculated as mem_map - section_nr_to_pfn(). + * The result is aligned to the minimum alignment of the two values: + * + * 1. All mem_map arrays are page-aligned. + * 2. section_nr_to_pfn() always clears PFN_SECTION_SHIFT lowest bits. Because + * it is subtracted from a struct page pointer, the offset is scaled by + * sizeof(struct page). This provides an alignment of PFN_SECTION_SHIFT + + * __ffs(sizeof(struct page)). */ enum { SECTION_MARKED_PRESENT_BIT, diff --git a/mm/sparse.c b/mm/sparse.c index dfabe554adf8..c2eb36bfb86d 100644 --- a/mm/sparse.c +++ b/mm/sparse.c @@ -269,7 +269,8 @@ static unsigned long sparse_encode_mem_map(struct page *mem_map, unsigned long p { unsigned long coded_mem_map = (unsigned long)(mem_map - (section_nr_to_pfn(pnum))); - BUILD_BUG_ON(SECTION_MAP_LAST_BIT > PFN_SECTION_SHIFT); + BUILD_BUG_ON(SECTION_MAP_LAST_BIT > min(PFN_SECTION_SHIFT + __ffs(sizeof(struct page)), + PAGE_SHIFT)); BUG_ON(coded_mem_map & ~SECTION_MAP_MASK); return coded_mem_map; } -- 2.20.1