summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst138
1 files changed, 113 insertions, 25 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst
index c8f380271cad..c57e61b5d8aa 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst
@@ -21,7 +21,8 @@ There are four components to pagemap:
* Bit 56 page exclusively mapped (since 4.2)
* Bit 57 pte is uffd-wp write-protected (since 5.13) (see
Documentation/admin-guide/mm/userfaultfd.rst)
- * Bits 58-60 zero
+ * Bit 58 pte is a guard region (since 6.15) (see madvise (2) man page)
+ * Bits 59-60 zero
* Bit 61 page is file-page or shared-anon (since 3.5)
* Bit 62 page swapped
* Bit 63 page present
@@ -37,12 +38,28 @@ There are four components to pagemap:
precisely which pages are mapped (or in swap) and comparing mapped
pages between processes.
+ Traditionally, bit 56 indicates that a page is mapped exactly once and bit
+ 56 is clear when a page is mapped multiple times, even when mapped in the
+ same process multiple times. In some kernel configurations, the semantics
+ for pages part of a larger allocation (e.g., THP) can differ: bit 56 is set
+ if all pages part of the corresponding large allocation are *certainly*
+ mapped in the same process, even if the page is mapped multiple times in that
+ process. Bit 56 is clear when any page page of the larger allocation
+ is *maybe* mapped in a different process. In some cases, a large allocation
+ might be treated as "maybe mapped by multiple processes" even though this
+ is no longer the case.
+
Efficient users of this interface will use ``/proc/pid/maps`` to
determine which areas of memory are actually mapped and llseek to
skip over unmapped regions.
* ``/proc/kpagecount``. This file contains a 64-bit count of the number of
- times each page is mapped, indexed by PFN.
+ times each page is mapped, indexed by PFN. Some kernel configurations do
+ not track the precise number of times a page part of a larger allocation
+ (e.g., THP) is mapped. In these configurations, the average number of
+ mappings per page in this larger allocation is returned instead. However,
+ if any page of the large allocation is mapped, the returned value will
+ be at least 1.
The page-types tool in the tools/mm directory can be used to query the
number of times a page is mapped.
@@ -98,7 +115,8 @@ Short descriptions to the page flags
A free memory block managed by the buddy system allocator.
The buddy system organizes free memory in blocks of various orders.
An order N block has 2^N physically contiguous pages, with the BUDDY flag
- set for and _only_ for the first page.
+ set for all pages.
+ Before 4.6 only the first page of the block had the flag set.
15 - COMPOUND_HEAD
A compound page with order N consists of 2^N physically contiguous pages.
A compound page with order 2 takes the form of "HTTT", where H donates its
@@ -118,7 +136,7 @@ Short descriptions to the page flags
21 - KSM
Identical memory pages dynamically shared between one or more processes.
22 - THP
- Contiguous pages which construct transparent hugepages.
+ Contiguous pages which construct THP of any size and mapped by any granularity.
23 - OFFLINE
The page is logically offline.
24 - ZERO_PAGE
@@ -173,27 +191,6 @@ LRU related page flags
The page-types tool in the tools/mm directory can be used to query the
above flags.
-Using pagemap to do something useful
-====================================
-
-The general procedure for using pagemap to find out about a process' memory
-usage goes like this:
-
- 1. Read ``/proc/pid/maps`` to determine which parts of the memory space are
- mapped to what.
- 2. Select the maps you are interested in -- all of them, or a particular
- library, or the stack or the heap, etc.
- 3. Open ``/proc/pid/pagemap`` and seek to the pages you would like to examine.
- 4. Read a u64 for each page from pagemap.
- 5. Open ``/proc/kpagecount`` and/or ``/proc/kpageflags``. For each PFN you
- just read, seek to that entry in the file, and read the data you want.
-
-For example, to find the "unique set size" (USS), which is the amount of
-memory that a process is using that is not shared with any other process,
-you can go through every map in the process, find the PFNs, look those up
-in kpagecount, and tally up the number of pages that are only referenced
-once.
-
Exceptions for Shared Memory
============================
@@ -227,3 +224,94 @@ Before Linux 3.11 pagemap bits 55-60 were used for "page-shift" (which is
always 12 at most architectures). Since Linux 3.11 their meaning changes
after first clear of soft-dirty bits. Since Linux 4.2 they are used for
flags unconditionally.
+
+Pagemap Scan IOCTL
+==================
+
+The ``PAGEMAP_SCAN`` IOCTL on the pagemap file can be used to get or optionally
+clear the info about page table entries. The following operations are supported
+in this IOCTL:
+
+- Scan the address range and get the memory ranges matching the provided criteria.
+ This is performed when the output buffer is specified.
+- Write-protect the pages. The ``PM_SCAN_WP_MATCHING`` is used to write-protect
+ the pages of interest. The ``PM_SCAN_CHECK_WPASYNC`` aborts the operation if
+ non-Async Write Protected pages are found. The ``PM_SCAN_WP_MATCHING`` can be
+ used with or without ``PM_SCAN_CHECK_WPASYNC``.
+- Both of those operations can be combined into one atomic operation where we can
+ get and write protect the pages as well.
+
+Following flags about pages are currently supported:
+
+- ``PAGE_IS_WPALLOWED`` - Page has async-write-protection enabled
+- ``PAGE_IS_WRITTEN`` - Page has been written to from the time it was write protected
+- ``PAGE_IS_FILE`` - Page is file backed
+- ``PAGE_IS_PRESENT`` - Page is present in the memory
+- ``PAGE_IS_SWAPPED`` - Page is in swapped
+- ``PAGE_IS_PFNZERO`` - Page has zero PFN
+- ``PAGE_IS_HUGE`` - Page is PMD-mapped THP or Hugetlb backed
+- ``PAGE_IS_SOFT_DIRTY`` - Page is soft-dirty
+- ``PAGE_IS_GUARD`` - Page is a part of a guard region
+
+The ``struct pm_scan_arg`` is used as the argument of the IOCTL.
+
+ 1. The size of the ``struct pm_scan_arg`` must be specified in the ``size``
+ field. This field will be helpful in recognizing the structure if extensions
+ are done later.
+ 2. The flags can be specified in the ``flags`` field. The ``PM_SCAN_WP_MATCHING``
+ and ``PM_SCAN_CHECK_WPASYNC`` are the only added flags at this time. The get
+ operation is optionally performed depending upon if the output buffer is
+ provided or not.
+ 3. The range is specified through ``start`` and ``end``.
+ 4. The walk can abort before visiting the complete range such as the user buffer
+ can get full etc. The walk ending address is specified in``end_walk``.
+ 5. The output buffer of ``struct page_region`` array and size is specified in
+ ``vec`` and ``vec_len``.
+ 6. The optional maximum requested pages are specified in the ``max_pages``.
+ 7. The masks are specified in ``category_mask``, ``category_anyof_mask``,
+ ``category_inverted`` and ``return_mask``.
+
+Find pages which have been written and WP them as well::
+
+ struct pm_scan_arg arg = {
+ .size = sizeof(arg),
+ .flags = PM_SCAN_CHECK_WPASYNC | PM_SCAN_CHECK_WPASYNC,
+ ..
+ .category_mask = PAGE_IS_WRITTEN,
+ .return_mask = PAGE_IS_WRITTEN,
+ };
+
+Find pages which have been written, are file backed, not swapped and either
+present or huge::
+
+ struct pm_scan_arg arg = {
+ .size = sizeof(arg),
+ .flags = 0,
+ ..
+ .category_mask = PAGE_IS_WRITTEN | PAGE_IS_SWAPPED,
+ .category_inverted = PAGE_IS_SWAPPED,
+ .category_anyof_mask = PAGE_IS_PRESENT | PAGE_IS_HUGE,
+ .return_mask = PAGE_IS_WRITTEN | PAGE_IS_SWAPPED |
+ PAGE_IS_PRESENT | PAGE_IS_HUGE,
+ };
+
+The ``PAGE_IS_WRITTEN`` flag can be considered as a better-performing alternative
+of soft-dirty flag. It doesn't get affected by VMA merging of the kernel and hence
+the user can find the true soft-dirty pages in case of normal pages. (There may
+still be extra dirty pages reported for THP or Hugetlb pages.)
+
+"PAGE_IS_WRITTEN" category is used with uffd write protect-enabled ranges to
+implement memory dirty tracking in userspace:
+
+ 1. The userfaultfd file descriptor is created with ``userfaultfd`` syscall.
+ 2. The ``UFFD_FEATURE_WP_UNPOPULATED`` and ``UFFD_FEATURE_WP_ASYNC`` features
+ are set by ``UFFDIO_API`` IOCTL.
+ 3. The memory range is registered with ``UFFDIO_REGISTER_MODE_WP`` mode
+ through ``UFFDIO_REGISTER`` IOCTL.
+ 4. Then any part of the registered memory or the whole memory region must
+ be write protected using ``PAGEMAP_SCAN`` IOCTL with flag ``PM_SCAN_WP_MATCHING``
+ or the ``UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT`` IOCTL can be used. Both of these perform the
+ same operation. The former is better in terms of performance.
+ 5. Now the ``PAGEMAP_SCAN`` IOCTL can be used to either just find pages which
+ have been written to since they were last marked and/or optionally write protect
+ the pages as well.