Commit 542eda1a8329 ("mm/rmap: improve anon_vma_clone(), unlink_anon_vmas() comments, add asserts") alters the way errors are handled, but overlooked one important aspect of clean up. When a VMA encounters an error state in anon_vma_clone() (that is, on attempted allocation of anon_vma_chain objects), it cleans up partially established state in cleanup_partial_anon_vmas(), before returning an error. However, this occurs prior to anon_vma->num_active_vmas being incremented, and it also fails to clear the VMA's vma->anon_vma field, which remains in place. This is immediately an inconsistent state, because anon_vma->num_active_vmas is supposed to track the number of VMAs whose vma->anon_vma field references that anon_vma, and now that count is off-by-negative-1 for each VMA for which this error state has occurred. When VMAs are unlinked from this anon_vma, unlink_anon_vmas() will eventually underflow anon_vma->num_active_vmas, which will trigger a warning. This will always eventually happen, as we unlink anon_vma's at process teardown. It could also cause maybe_reuse_anon_vma() to incorrectly permit the reuse of an anon_vma which has active VMAs attached, which will lead to a persistently invalid state. The solution is to clear the VMA's anon_vma field when we clean up partial state, as the fact we are doing so indicates clearly that the VMA is not correctly integrated into the anon_vma tree and thus this field is invalid. Reported-by: Sasha Levin Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20260302151547.2389070-1-sashal@kernel.org/ Reported-by: Jiakai Xu Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/CAFb8wJvRhatRD-9DVmr5v5pixTMPEr3UKjYBJjCd09OfH55CKg@mail.gmail.com/ Fixes: 542eda1a8329 ("mm/rmap: improve anon_vma_clone(), unlink_anon_vmas() comments, add asserts") Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes (Oracle) --- mm/rmap.c | 7 +++++++ 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+) diff --git a/mm/rmap.c b/mm/rmap.c index 6398d7eef393..abe4712a220c 100644 --- a/mm/rmap.c +++ b/mm/rmap.c @@ -457,6 +457,13 @@ static void cleanup_partial_anon_vmas(struct vm_area_struct *vma) list_del(&avc->same_vma); anon_vma_chain_free(avc); } + + /* + * The anon_vma assigned to this VMA is no longer valid, as we were not + * able to correctly clone AVC state. Avoid inconsistent anon_vma tree + * state by resetting. + */ + vma->anon_vma = NULL; } /** -- 2.53.0