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authorLee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com>2008-10-18 23:26:47 -0400
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2008-10-20 11:52:31 -0400
commitfa07e787733416c42938a310a8e717295934e33c (patch)
treef2ba036532d89fe27e65b18ca862137067587ea2
parentb291f000393f5a0b679012b39d79fbc85c018233 (diff)
doc: unevictable LRU and mlocked pages documentation
Documentation for unevictable lru list and its usage. Signed-off-by: Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com> Signed-off-by: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com> Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
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1
2This document describes the Linux memory management "Unevictable LRU"
3infrastructure and the use of this infrastructure to manage several types
4of "unevictable" pages. The document attempts to provide the overall
5rationale behind this mechanism and the rationale for some of the design
6decisions that drove the implementation. The latter design rationale is
7discussed in the context of an implementation description. Admittedly, one
8can obtain the implementation details--the "what does it do?"--by reading the
9code. One hopes that the descriptions below add value by provide the answer
10to "why does it do that?".
11
12Unevictable LRU Infrastructure:
13
14The Unevictable LRU adds an additional LRU list to track unevictable pages
15and to hide these pages from vmscan. This mechanism is based on a patch by
16Larry Woodman of Red Hat to address several scalability problems with page
17reclaim in Linux. The problems have been observed at customer sites on large
18memory x86_64 systems. For example, a non-numal x86_64 platform with 128GB
19of main memory will have over 32 million 4k pages in a single zone. When a
20large fraction of these pages are not evictable for any reason [see below],
21vmscan will spend a lot of time scanning the LRU lists looking for the small
22fraction of pages that are evictable. This can result in a situation where
23all cpus are spending 100% of their time in vmscan for hours or days on end,
24with the system completely unresponsive.
25
26The Unevictable LRU infrastructure addresses the following classes of
27unevictable pages:
28
29+ page owned by ramfs
30+ page mapped into SHM_LOCKed shared memory regions
31+ page mapped into VM_LOCKED [mlock()ed] vmas
32
33The infrastructure might be able to handle other conditions that make pages
34unevictable, either by definition or by circumstance, in the future.
35
36
37The Unevictable LRU List
38
39The Unevictable LRU infrastructure consists of an additional, per-zone, LRU list
40called the "unevictable" list and an associated page flag, PG_unevictable, to
41indicate that the page is being managed on the unevictable list. The
42PG_unevictable flag is analogous to, and mutually exclusive with, the PG_active
43flag in that it indicates on which LRU list a page resides when PG_lru is set.
44The unevictable LRU list is source configurable based on the UNEVICTABLE_LRU
45Kconfig option.
46
47The Unevictable LRU infrastructure maintains unevictable pages on an additional
48LRU list for a few reasons:
49
501) We get to "treat unevictable pages just like we treat other pages in the
51 system, which means we get to use the same code to manipulate them, the
52 same code to isolate them (for migrate, etc.), the same code to keep track
53 of the statistics, etc..." [Rik van Riel]
54
552) We want to be able to migrate unevictable pages between nodes--for memory
56 defragmentation, workload management and memory hotplug. The linux kernel
57 can only migrate pages that it can successfully isolate from the lru lists.
58 If we were to maintain pages elsewise than on an lru-like list, where they
59 can be found by isolate_lru_page(), we would prevent their migration, unless
60 we reworked migration code to find the unevictable pages.
61
62
63The unevictable LRU list does not differentiate between file backed and swap
64backed [anon] pages. This differentiation is only important while the pages
65are, in fact, evictable.
66
67The unevictable LRU list benefits from the "arrayification" of the per-zone
68LRU lists and statistics originally proposed and posted by Christoph Lameter.
69
70The unevictable list does not use the lru pagevec mechanism. Rather,
71unevictable pages are placed directly on the page's zone's unevictable
72list under the zone lru_lock. The reason for this is to prevent stranding
73of pages on the unevictable list when one task has the page isolated from the
74lru and other tasks are changing the "evictability" state of the page.
75
76
77Unevictable LRU and Memory Controller Interaction
78
79The memory controller data structure automatically gets a per zone unevictable
80lru list as a result of the "arrayification" of the per-zone LRU lists. The
81memory controller tracks the movement of pages to and from the unevictable list.
82When a memory control group comes under memory pressure, the controller will
83not attempt to reclaim pages on the unevictable list. This has a couple of
84effects. Because the pages are "hidden" from reclaim on the unevictable list,
85the reclaim process can be more efficient, dealing only with pages that have
86a chance of being reclaimed. On the other hand, if too many of the pages
87charged to the control group are unevictable, the evictable portion of the
88working set of the tasks in the control group may not fit into the available
89memory. This can cause the control group to thrash or to oom-kill tasks.
90
91
92Unevictable LRU: Detecting Unevictable Pages
93
94The function page_evictable(page, vma) in vmscan.c determines whether a
95page is evictable or not. For ramfs pages and pages in SHM_LOCKed regions,
96page_evictable() tests a new address space flag, AS_UNEVICTABLE, in the page's
97address space using a wrapper function. Wrapper functions are used to set,
98clear and test the flag to reduce the requirement for #ifdef's throughout the
99source code. AS_UNEVICTABLE is set on ramfs inode/mapping when it is created.
100This flag remains for the life of the inode.
101
102For shared memory regions, AS_UNEVICTABLE is set when an application
103successfully SHM_LOCKs the region and is removed when the region is
104SHM_UNLOCKed. Note that shmctl(SHM_LOCK, ...) does not populate the page
105tables for the region as does, for example, mlock(). So, we make no special
106effort to push any pages in the SHM_LOCKed region to the unevictable list.
107Vmscan will do this when/if it encounters the pages during reclaim. On
108SHM_UNLOCK, shmctl() scans the pages in the region and "rescues" them from the
109unevictable list if no other condition keeps them unevictable. If a SHM_LOCKed
110region is destroyed, the pages are also "rescued" from the unevictable list in
111the process of freeing them.
112
113page_evictable() detects mlock()ed pages by testing an additional page flag,
114PG_mlocked via the PageMlocked() wrapper. If the page is NOT mlocked, and a
115non-NULL vma is supplied, page_evictable() will check whether the vma is
116VM_LOCKED via is_mlocked_vma(). is_mlocked_vma() will SetPageMlocked() and
117update the appropriate statistics if the vma is VM_LOCKED. This method allows
118efficient "culling" of pages in the fault path that are being faulted in to
119VM_LOCKED vmas.
120
121
122Unevictable Pages and Vmscan [shrink_*_list()]
123
124If unevictable pages are culled in the fault path, or moved to the unevictable
125list at mlock() or mmap() time, vmscan will never encounter the pages until
126they have become evictable again, for example, via munlock() and have been
127"rescued" from the unevictable list. However, there may be situations where we
128decide, for the sake of expediency, to leave a unevictable page on one of the
129regular active/inactive LRU lists for vmscan to deal with. Vmscan checks for
130such pages in all of the shrink_{active|inactive|page}_list() functions and
131will "cull" such pages that it encounters--that is, it diverts those pages to
132the unevictable list for the zone being scanned.
133
134There may be situations where a page is mapped into a VM_LOCKED vma, but the
135page is not marked as PageMlocked. Such pages will make it all the way to
136shrink_page_list() where they will be detected when vmscan walks the reverse
137map in try_to_unmap(). If try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK, shrink_page_list()
138will cull the page at that point.
139
140Note that for anonymous pages, shrink_page_list() attempts to add the page to
141the swap cache before it tries to unmap the page. To avoid this unnecessary
142consumption of swap space, shrink_page_list() calls try_to_munlock() to check
143whether any VM_LOCKED vmas map the page without attempting to unmap the page.
144If try_to_munlock() returns SWAP_MLOCK, shrink_page_list() will cull the page
145without consuming swap space. try_to_munlock() will be described below.
146
147To "cull" an unevictable page, vmscan simply puts the page back on the lru
148list using putback_lru_page()--the inverse operation to isolate_lru_page()--
149after dropping the page lock. Because the condition which makes the page
150unevictable may change once the page is unlocked, putback_lru_page() will
151recheck the unevictable state of a page that it places on the unevictable lru
152list. If the page has become unevictable, putback_lru_page() removes it from
153the list and retries, including the page_unevictable() test. Because such a
154race is a rare event and movement of pages onto the unevictable list should be
155rare, these extra evictabilty checks should not occur in the majority of calls
156to putback_lru_page().
157
158
159Mlocked Page: Prior Work
160
161The "Unevictable Mlocked Pages" infrastructure is based on work originally
162posted by Nick Piggin in an RFC patch entitled "mm: mlocked pages off LRU".
163Nick posted his patch as an alternative to a patch posted by Christoph
164Lameter to achieve the same objective--hiding mlocked pages from vmscan.
165In Nick's patch, he used one of the struct page lru list link fields as a count
166of VM_LOCKED vmas that map the page. This use of the link field for a count
167prevented the management of the pages on an LRU list. Thus, mlocked pages were
168not migratable as isolate_lru_page() could not find them and the lru list link
169field was not available to the migration subsystem. Nick resolved this by
170putting mlocked pages back on the lru list before attempting to isolate them,
171thus abandoning the count of VM_LOCKED vmas. When Nick's patch was integrated
172with the Unevictable LRU work, the count was replaced by walking the reverse
173map to determine whether any VM_LOCKED vmas mapped the page. More on this
174below.
175
176
177Mlocked Pages: Basic Management
178
179Mlocked pages--pages mapped into a VM_LOCKED vma--represent one class of
180unevictable pages. When such a page has been "noticed" by the memory
181management subsystem, the page is marked with the PG_mlocked [PageMlocked()]
182flag. A PageMlocked() page will be placed on the unevictable LRU list when
183it is added to the LRU. Pages can be "noticed" by memory management in
184several places:
185
1861) in the mlock()/mlockall() system call handlers.
1872) in the mmap() system call handler when mmap()ing a region with the
188 MAP_LOCKED flag, or mmap()ing a region in a task that has called
189 mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE flag. Both of these conditions result
190 in the VM_LOCKED flag being set for the vma.
1913) in the fault path, if mlocked pages are "culled" in the fault path,
192 and when a VM_LOCKED stack segment is expanded.
1934) as mentioned above, in vmscan:shrink_page_list() with attempting to
194 reclaim a page in a VM_LOCKED vma--via try_to_unmap() or try_to_munlock().
195
196Mlocked pages become unlocked and rescued from the unevictable list when:
197
1981) mapped in a range unlocked via the munlock()/munlockall() system calls.
1992) munmapped() out of the last VM_LOCKED vma that maps the page, including
200 unmapping at task exit.
2013) when the page is truncated from the last VM_LOCKED vma of an mmap()ed file.
2024) before a page is COWed in a VM_LOCKED vma.
203
204
205Mlocked Pages: mlock()/mlockall() System Call Handling
206
207Both [do_]mlock() and [do_]mlockall() system call handlers call mlock_fixup()
208for each vma in the range specified by the call. In the case of mlockall(),
209this is the entire active address space of the task. Note that mlock_fixup()
210is used for both mlock()ing and munlock()ing a range of memory. A call to
211mlock() an already VM_LOCKED vma, or to munlock() a vma that is not VM_LOCKED
212is treated as a no-op--mlock_fixup() simply returns.
213
214If the vma passes some filtering described in "Mlocked Pages: Filtering Vmas"
215below, mlock_fixup() will attempt to merge the vma with its neighbors or split
216off a subset of the vma if the range does not cover the entire vma. Once the
217vma has been merged or split or neither, mlock_fixup() will call
218__mlock_vma_pages_range() to fault in the pages via get_user_pages() and
219to mark the pages as mlocked via mlock_vma_page().
220
221Note that the vma being mlocked might be mapped with PROT_NONE. In this case,
222get_user_pages() will be unable to fault in the pages. That's OK. If pages
223do end up getting faulted into this VM_LOCKED vma, we'll handle them in the
224fault path or in vmscan.
225
226Also note that a page returned by get_user_pages() could be truncated or
227migrated out from under us, while we're trying to mlock it. To detect
228this, __mlock_vma_pages_range() tests the page_mapping after acquiring
229the page lock. If the page is still associated with its mapping, we'll
230go ahead and call mlock_vma_page(). If the mapping is gone, we just
231unlock the page and move on. Worse case, this results in page mapped
232in a VM_LOCKED vma remaining on a normal LRU list without being
233PageMlocked(). Again, vmscan will detect and cull such pages.
234
235mlock_vma_page(), called with the page locked [N.B., not "mlocked"], will
236TestSetPageMlocked() for each page returned by get_user_pages(). We use
237TestSetPageMlocked() because the page might already be mlocked by another
238task/vma and we don't want to do extra work. We especially do not want to
239count an mlocked page more than once in the statistics. If the page was
240already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() is done.
241
242If the page was NOT already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() attempts to isolate the
243page from the LRU, as it is likely on the appropriate active or inactive list
244at that time. If the isolate_lru_page() succeeds, mlock_vma_page() will
245putback the page--putback_lru_page()--which will notice that the page is now
246mlocked and divert the page to the zone's unevictable LRU list. If
247mlock_vma_page() is unable to isolate the page from the LRU, vmscan will handle
248it later if/when it attempts to reclaim the page.
249
250
251Mlocked Pages: Filtering Special Vmas
252
253mlock_fixup() filters several classes of "special" vmas:
254
2551) vmas with VM_IO|VM_PFNMAP set are skipped entirely. The pages behind
256 these mappings are inherently pinned, so we don't need to mark them as
257 mlocked. In any case, most of the pages have no struct page in which to
258 so mark the page. Because of this, get_user_pages() will fail for these
259 vmas, so there is no sense in attempting to visit them.
260
2612) vmas mapping hugetlbfs page are already effectively pinned into memory.
262 We don't need nor want to mlock() these pages. However, to preserve the
263 prior behavior of mlock()--before the unevictable/mlock changes--mlock_fixup()
264 will call make_pages_present() in the hugetlbfs vma range to allocate the
265 huge pages and populate the ptes.
266
2673) vmas with VM_DONTEXPAND|VM_RESERVED are generally user space mappings of
268 kernel pages, such as the vdso page, relay channel pages, etc. These pages
269 are inherently unevictable and are not managed on the LRU lists.
270 mlock_fixup() treats these vmas the same as hugetlbfs vmas. It calls
271 make_pages_present() to populate the ptes.
272
273Note that for all of these special vmas, mlock_fixup() does not set the
274VM_LOCKED flag. Therefore, we won't have to deal with them later during
275munlock() or munmap()--for example, at task exit. Neither does mlock_fixup()
276account these vmas against the task's "locked_vm".
277
278Mlocked Pages: Downgrading the Mmap Semaphore.
279
280mlock_fixup() must be called with the mmap semaphore held for write, because
281it may have to merge or split vmas. However, mlocking a large region of
282memory can take a long time--especially if vmscan must reclaim pages to
283satisfy the regions requirements. Faulting in a large region with the mmap
284semaphore held for write can hold off other faults on the address space, in
285the case of a multi-threaded task. It can also hold off scans of the task's
286address space via /proc. While testing under heavy load, it was observed that
287the ps(1) command could be held off for many minutes while a large segment was
288mlock()ed down.
289
290To address this issue, and to make the system more responsive during mlock()ing
291of large segments, mlock_fixup() downgrades the mmap semaphore to read mode
292during the call to __mlock_vma_pages_range(). This works fine. However, the
293callers of mlock_fixup() expect the semaphore to be returned in write mode.
294So, mlock_fixup() "upgrades" the semphore to write mode. Linux does not
295support an atomic upgrade_sem() call, so mlock_fixup() must drop the semaphore
296and reacquire it in write mode. In a multi-threaded task, it is possible for
297the task memory map to change while the semaphore is dropped. Therefore,
298mlock_fixup() looks up the vma at the range start address after reacquiring
299the semaphore in write mode and verifies that it still covers the original
300range. If not, mlock_fixup() returns an error [-EAGAIN]. All callers of
301mlock_fixup() have been changed to deal with this new error condition.
302
303Note: when munlocking a region, all of the pages should already be resident--
304unless we have racing threads mlocking() and munlocking() regions. So,
305unlocking should not have to wait for page allocations nor faults of any kind.
306Therefore mlock_fixup() does not downgrade the semaphore for munlock().
307
308
309Mlocked Pages: munlock()/munlockall() System Call Handling
310
311The munlock() and munlockall() system calls are handled by the same functions--
312do_mlock[all]()--as the mlock() and mlockall() system calls with the unlock
313vs lock operation indicated by an argument. So, these system calls are also
314handled by mlock_fixup(). Again, if called for an already munlock()ed vma,
315mlock_fixup() simply returns. Because of the vma filtering discussed above,
316VM_LOCKED will not be set in any "special" vmas. So, these vmas will be
317ignored for munlock.
318
319If the vma is VM_LOCKED, mlock_fixup() again attempts to merge or split off
320the specified range. The range is then munlocked via the function
321__mlock_vma_pages_range()--the same function used to mlock a vma range--
322passing a flag to indicate that munlock() is being performed.
323
324Because the vma access protections could have been changed to PROT_NONE after
325faulting in and mlocking some pages, get_user_pages() was unreliable for visiting
326these pages for munlocking. Because we don't want to leave pages mlocked(),
327get_user_pages() was enhanced to accept a flag to ignore the permissions when
328fetching the pages--all of which should be resident as a result of previous
329mlock()ing.
330
331For munlock(), __mlock_vma_pages_range() unlocks individual pages by calling
332munlock_vma_page(). munlock_vma_page() unconditionally clears the PG_mlocked
333flag using TestClearPageMlocked(). As with mlock_vma_page(), munlock_vma_page()
334use the Test*PageMlocked() function to handle the case where the page might
335have already been unlocked by another task. If the page was mlocked,
336munlock_vma_page() updates that zone statistics for the number of mlocked
337pages. Note, however, that at this point we haven't checked whether the page
338is mapped by other VM_LOCKED vmas.
339
340We can't call try_to_munlock(), the function that walks the reverse map to check
341for other VM_LOCKED vmas, without first isolating the page from the LRU.
342try_to_munlock() is a variant of try_to_unmap() and thus requires that the page
343not be on an lru list. [More on these below.] However, the call to
344isolate_lru_page() could fail, in which case we couldn't try_to_munlock().
345So, we go ahead and clear PG_mlocked up front, as this might be the only chance
346we have. If we can successfully isolate the page, we go ahead and
347try_to_munlock(), which will restore the PG_mlocked flag and update the zone
348page statistics if it finds another vma holding the page mlocked. If we fail
349to isolate the page, we'll have left a potentially mlocked page on the LRU.
350This is fine, because we'll catch it later when/if vmscan tries to reclaim the
351page. This should be relatively rare.
352
353Mlocked Pages: Migrating Them...
354
355A page that is being migrated has been isolated from the lru lists and is
356held locked across unmapping of the page, updating the page's mapping
357[address_space] entry and copying the contents and state, until the
358page table entry has been replaced with an entry that refers to the new
359page. Linux supports migration of mlocked pages and other unevictable
360pages. This involves simply moving the PageMlocked and PageUnevictable states
361from the old page to the new page.
362
363Note that page migration can race with mlocking or munlocking of the same
364page. This has been discussed from the mlock/munlock perspective in the
365respective sections above. Both processes [migration, m[un]locking], hold
366the page locked. This provides the first level of synchronization. Page
367migration zeros out the page_mapping of the old page before unlocking it,
368so m[un]lock can skip these pages by testing the page mapping under page
369lock.
370
371When completing page migration, we place the new and old pages back onto the
372lru after dropping the page lock. The "unneeded" page--old page on success,
373new page on failure--will be freed when the reference count held by the
374migration process is released. To ensure that we don't strand pages on the
375unevictable list because of a race between munlock and migration, page
376migration uses the putback_lru_page() function to add migrated pages back to
377the lru.
378
379
380Mlocked Pages: mmap(MAP_LOCKED) System Call Handling
381
382In addition the the mlock()/mlockall() system calls, an application can request
383that a region of memory be mlocked using the MAP_LOCKED flag with the mmap()
384call. Furthermore, any mmap() call or brk() call that expands the heap by a
385task that has previously called mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE flag will result
386in the newly mapped memory being mlocked. Before the unevictable/mlock changes,
387the kernel simply called make_pages_present() to allocate pages and populate
388the page table.
389
390To mlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the
391mmap() handler and task address space expansion functions call
392mlock_vma_pages_range() specifying the vma and the address range to mlock.
393mlock_vma_pages_range() filters vmas like mlock_fixup(), as described above in
394"Mlocked Pages: Filtering Vmas". It will clear the VM_LOCKED flag, which will
395have already been set by the caller, in filtered vmas. Thus these vma's need
396not be visited for munlock when the region is unmapped.
397
398For "normal" vmas, mlock_vma_pages_range() calls __mlock_vma_pages_range() to
399fault/allocate the pages and mlock them. Again, like mlock_fixup(),
400mlock_vma_pages_range() downgrades the mmap semaphore to read mode before
401attempting to fault/allocate and mlock the pages; and "upgrades" the semaphore
402back to write mode before returning.
403
404The callers of mlock_vma_pages_range() will have already added the memory
405range to be mlocked to the task's "locked_vm". To account for filtered vmas,
406mlock_vma_pages_range() returns the number of pages NOT mlocked. All of the
407callers then subtract a non-negative return value from the task's locked_vm.
408A negative return value represent an error--for example, from get_user_pages()
409attempting to fault in a vma with PROT_NONE access. In this case, we leave
410the memory range accounted as locked_vm, as the protections could be changed
411later and pages allocated into that region.
412
413
414Mlocked Pages: munmap()/exit()/exec() System Call Handling
415
416When unmapping an mlocked region of memory, whether by an explicit call to
417munmap() or via an internal unmap from exit() or exec() processing, we must
418munlock the pages if we're removing the last VM_LOCKED vma that maps the pages.
419Before the unevictable/mlock changes, mlocking did not mark the pages in any way,
420so unmapping them required no processing.
421
422To munlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the
423munmap() hander and task address space tear down function call
424munlock_vma_pages_all(). The name reflects the observation that one always
425specifies the entire vma range when munlock()ing during unmap of a region.
426Because of the vma filtering when mlocking() regions, only "normal" vmas that
427actually contain mlocked pages will be passed to munlock_vma_pages_all().
428
429munlock_vma_pages_all() clears the VM_LOCKED vma flag and, like mlock_fixup()
430for the munlock case, calls __munlock_vma_pages_range() to walk the page table
431for the vma's memory range and munlock_vma_page() each resident page mapped by
432the vma. This effectively munlocks the page, only if this is the last
433VM_LOCKED vma that maps the page.
434
435
436Mlocked Page: try_to_unmap()
437
438[Note: the code changes represented by this section are really quite small
439compared to the text to describe what happening and why, and to discuss the
440implications.]
441
442Pages can, of course, be mapped into multiple vmas. Some of these vmas may
443have VM_LOCKED flag set. It is possible for a page mapped into one or more
444VM_LOCKED vmas not to have the PG_mlocked flag set and therefore reside on one
445of the active or inactive LRU lists. This could happen if, for example, a
446task in the process of munlock()ing the page could not isolate the page from
447the LRU. As a result, vmscan/shrink_page_list() might encounter such a page
448as described in "Unevictable Pages and Vmscan [shrink_*_list()]". To
449handle this situation, try_to_unmap() has been enhanced to check for VM_LOCKED
450vmas while it is walking a page's reverse map.
451
452try_to_unmap() is always called, by either vmscan for reclaim or for page
453migration, with the argument page locked and isolated from the LRU. BUG_ON()
454assertions enforce this requirement. Separate functions handle anonymous and
455mapped file pages, as these types of pages have different reverse map
456mechanisms.
457
458 try_to_unmap_anon()
459
460To unmap anonymous pages, each vma in the list anchored in the anon_vma must be
461visited--at least until a VM_LOCKED vma is encountered. If the page is being
462unmapped for migration, VM_LOCKED vmas do not stop the process because mlocked
463pages are migratable. However, for reclaim, if the page is mapped into a
464VM_LOCKED vma, the scan stops. try_to_unmap() attempts to acquire the mmap
465semphore of the mm_struct to which the vma belongs in read mode. If this is
466successful, try_to_unmap() will mlock the page via mlock_vma_page()--we
467wouldn't have gotten to try_to_unmap() if the page were already mlocked--and
468will return SWAP_MLOCK, indicating that the page is unevictable. If the
469mmap semaphore cannot be acquired, we are not sure whether the page is really
470unevictable or not. In this case, try_to_unmap() will return SWAP_AGAIN.
471
472 try_to_unmap_file() -- linear mappings
473
474Unmapping of a mapped file page works the same, except that the scan visits
475all vmas that maps the page's index/page offset in the page's mapping's
476reverse map priority search tree. It must also visit each vma in the page's
477mapping's non-linear list, if the list is non-empty. As for anonymous pages,
478on encountering a VM_LOCKED vma for a mapped file page, try_to_unmap() will
479attempt to acquire the associated mm_struct's mmap semaphore to mlock the page,
480returning SWAP_MLOCK if this is successful, and SWAP_AGAIN, if not.
481
482 try_to_unmap_file() -- non-linear mappings
483
484If a page's mapping contains a non-empty non-linear mapping vma list, then
485try_to_un{map|lock}() must also visit each vma in that list to determine
486whether the page is mapped in a VM_LOCKED vma. Again, the scan must visit
487all vmas in the non-linear list to ensure that the pages is not/should not be
488mlocked. If a VM_LOCKED vma is found in the list, the scan could terminate.
489However, there is no easy way to determine whether the page is actually mapped
490in a given vma--either for unmapping or testing whether the VM_LOCKED vma
491actually pins the page.
492
493So, try_to_unmap_file() handles non-linear mappings by scanning a certain
494number of pages--a "cluster"--in each non-linear vma associated with the page's
495mapping, for each file mapped page that vmscan tries to unmap. If this happens
496to unmap the page we're trying to unmap, try_to_unmap() will notice this on
497return--(page_mapcount(page) == 0)--and return SWAP_SUCCESS. Otherwise, it
498will return SWAP_AGAIN, causing vmscan to recirculate this page. We take
499advantage of the cluster scan in try_to_unmap_cluster() as follows:
500
501For each non-linear vma, try_to_unmap_cluster() attempts to acquire the mmap
502semaphore of the associated mm_struct for read without blocking. If this
503attempt is successful and the vma is VM_LOCKED, try_to_unmap_cluster() will
504retain the mmap semaphore for the scan; otherwise it drops it here. Then,
505for each page in the cluster, if we're holding the mmap semaphore for a locked
506vma, try_to_unmap_cluster() calls mlock_vma_page() to mlock the page. This
507call is a no-op if the page is already locked, but will mlock any pages in
508the non-linear mapping that happen to be unlocked. If one of the pages so
509mlocked is the page passed in to try_to_unmap(), try_to_unmap_cluster() will
510return SWAP_MLOCK, rather than the default SWAP_AGAIN. This will allow vmscan
511to cull the page, rather than recirculating it on the inactive list. Again,
512if try_to_unmap_cluster() cannot acquire the vma's mmap sem, it returns
513SWAP_AGAIN, indicating that the page is mapped by a VM_LOCKED vma, but
514couldn't be mlocked.
515
516
517Mlocked pages: try_to_munlock() Reverse Map Scan
518
519TODO/FIXME: a better name might be page_mlocked()--analogous to the
520page_referenced() reverse map walker--especially if we continue to call this
521from shrink_page_list(). See related TODO/FIXME below.
522
523When munlock_vma_page()--see "Mlocked Pages: munlock()/munlockall() System
524Call Handling" above--tries to munlock a page, or when shrink_page_list()
525encounters an anonymous page that is not yet in the swap cache, they need to
526determine whether or not the page is mapped by any VM_LOCKED vma, without
527actually attempting to unmap all ptes from the page. For this purpose, the
528unevictable/mlock infrastructure introduced a variant of try_to_unmap() called
529try_to_munlock().
530
531try_to_munlock() calls the same functions as try_to_unmap() for anonymous and
532mapped file pages with an additional argument specifing unlock versus unmap
533processing. Again, these functions walk the respective reverse maps looking
534for VM_LOCKED vmas. When such a vma is found for anonymous pages and file
535pages mapped in linear VMAs, as in the try_to_unmap() case, the functions
536attempt to acquire the associated mmap semphore, mlock the page via
537mlock_vma_page() and return SWAP_MLOCK. This effectively undoes the
538pre-clearing of the page's PG_mlocked done by munlock_vma_page() and informs
539shrink_page_list() that the anonymous page should be culled rather than added
540to the swap cache in preparation for a try_to_unmap() that will almost
541certainly fail.
542
543If try_to_unmap() is unable to acquire a VM_LOCKED vma's associated mmap
544semaphore, it will return SWAP_AGAIN. This will allow shrink_page_list()
545to recycle the page on the inactive list and hope that it has better luck
546with the page next time.
547
548For file pages mapped into non-linear vmas, the try_to_munlock() logic works
549slightly differently. On encountering a VM_LOCKED non-linear vma that might
550map the page, try_to_munlock() returns SWAP_AGAIN without actually mlocking
551the page. munlock_vma_page() will just leave the page unlocked and let
552vmscan deal with it--the usual fallback position.
553
554Note that try_to_munlock()'s reverse map walk must visit every vma in a pages'
555reverse map to determine that a page is NOT mapped into any VM_LOCKED vma.
556However, the scan can terminate when it encounters a VM_LOCKED vma and can
557successfully acquire the vma's mmap semphore for read and mlock the page.
558Although try_to_munlock() can be called many [very many!] times when
559munlock()ing a large region or tearing down a large address space that has been
560mlocked via mlockall(), overall this is a fairly rare event. In addition,
561although shrink_page_list() calls try_to_munlock() for every anonymous page that
562it handles that is not yet in the swap cache, on average anonymous pages will
563have very short reverse map lists.
564
565Mlocked Page: Page Reclaim in shrink_*_list()
566
567shrink_active_list() culls any obviously unevictable pages--i.e.,
568!page_evictable(page, NULL)--diverting these to the unevictable lru
569list. However, shrink_active_list() only sees unevictable pages that
570made it onto the active/inactive lru lists. Note that these pages do not
571have PageUnevictable set--otherwise, they would be on the unevictable list and
572shrink_active_list would never see them.
573
574Some examples of these unevictable pages on the LRU lists are:
575
5761) ramfs pages that have been placed on the lru lists when first allocated.
577
5782) SHM_LOCKed shared memory pages. shmctl(SHM_LOCK) does not attempt to
579 allocate or fault in the pages in the shared memory region. This happens
580 when an application accesses the page the first time after SHM_LOCKing
581 the segment.
582
5833) Mlocked pages that could not be isolated from the lru and moved to the
584 unevictable list in mlock_vma_page().
585
5863) Pages mapped into multiple VM_LOCKED vmas, but try_to_munlock() couldn't
587 acquire the vma's mmap semaphore to test the flags and set PageMlocked.
588 munlock_vma_page() was forced to let the page back on to the normal
589 LRU list for vmscan to handle.
590
591shrink_inactive_list() also culls any unevictable pages that it finds
592on the inactive lists, again diverting them to the appropriate zone's unevictable
593lru list. shrink_inactive_list() should only see SHM_LOCKed pages that became
594SHM_LOCKed after shrink_active_list() had moved them to the inactive list, or
595pages mapped into VM_LOCKED vmas that munlock_vma_page() couldn't isolate from
596the lru to recheck via try_to_munlock(). shrink_inactive_list() won't notice
597the latter, but will pass on to shrink_page_list().
598
599shrink_page_list() again culls obviously unevictable pages that it could
600encounter for similar reason to shrink_inactive_list(). As already discussed,
601shrink_page_list() proactively looks for anonymous pages that should have
602PG_mlocked set but don't--these would not be detected by page_evictable()--to
603avoid adding them to the swap cache unnecessarily. File pages mapped into
604VM_LOCKED vmas but without PG_mlocked set will make it all the way to
605try_to_unmap(). shrink_page_list() will divert them to the unevictable list when
606try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK, as discussed above.
607
608TODO/FIXME: If we can enhance the swap cache to reliably remove entries
609with page_count(page) > 2, as long as all ptes are mapped to the page and
610not the swap entry, we can probably remove the call to try_to_munlock() in
611shrink_page_list() and just remove the page from the swap cache when
612try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK. Currently, remove_exclusive_swap_page()
613doesn't seem to allow that.
614
615