1 ============================== 2 UNEVICTABLE LRU INFRASTRUCTURE 3 ============================== 4 5======== 6CONTENTS 7======== 8 9 (*) The Unevictable LRU 10 11 - The unevictable page list. 12 - Memory control group interaction. 13 - Marking address spaces unevictable. 14 - Detecting Unevictable Pages. 15 - vmscan's handling of unevictable pages. 16 17 (*) mlock()'d pages. 18 19 - History. 20 - Basic management. 21 - mlock()/mlockall() system call handling. 22 - Filtering special vmas. 23 - munlock()/munlockall() system call handling. 24 - Migrating mlocked pages. 25 - Compacting mlocked pages. 26 - mmap(MAP_LOCKED) system call handling. 27 - munmap()/exit()/exec() system call handling. 28 - try_to_unmap(). 29 - try_to_munlock() reverse map scan. 30 - Page reclaim in shrink_*_list(). 31 32 33============ 34INTRODUCTION 35============ 36 37This document describes the Linux memory manager's "Unevictable LRU" 38infrastructure and the use of this to manage several types of "unevictable" 39pages. 40 41The document attempts to provide the overall rationale behind this mechanism 42and the rationale for some of the design decisions that drove the 43implementation. The latter design rationale is discussed in the context of an 44implementation description. Admittedly, one can obtain the implementation 45details - the "what does it do?" - by reading the code. One hopes that the 46descriptions below add value by provide the answer to "why does it do that?". 47 48 49=================== 50THE UNEVICTABLE LRU 51=================== 52 53The Unevictable LRU facility adds an additional LRU list to track unevictable 54pages and to hide these pages from vmscan. This mechanism is based on a patch 55by Larry Woodman of Red Hat to address several scalability problems with page 56reclaim in Linux. The problems have been observed at customer sites on large 57memory x86_64 systems. 58 59To illustrate this with an example, a non-NUMA x86_64 platform with 128GB of 60main memory will have over 32 million 4k pages in a single zone. When a large 61fraction of these pages are not evictable for any reason [see below], vmscan 62will spend a lot of time scanning the LRU lists looking for the small fraction 63of pages that are evictable. This can result in a situation where all CPUs are 64spending 100% of their time in vmscan for hours or days on end, with the system 65completely unresponsive. 66 67The unevictable list addresses the following classes of unevictable pages: 68 69 (*) Those owned by ramfs. 70 71 (*) Those mapped into SHM_LOCK'd shared memory regions. 72 73 (*) Those mapped into VM_LOCKED [mlock()ed] VMAs. 74 75The infrastructure may also be able to handle other conditions that make pages 76unevictable, either by definition or by circumstance, in the future. 77 78 79THE UNEVICTABLE PAGE LIST 80------------------------- 81 82The Unevictable LRU infrastructure consists of an additional, per-zone, LRU list 83called the "unevictable" list and an associated page flag, PG_unevictable, to 84indicate that the page is being managed on the unevictable list. 85 86The PG_unevictable flag is analogous to, and mutually exclusive with, the 87PG_active flag in that it indicates on which LRU list a page resides when 88PG_lru is set. 89 90The Unevictable LRU infrastructure maintains unevictable pages on an additional 91LRU list for a few reasons: 92 93 (1) We get to "treat unevictable pages just like we treat other pages in the 94 system - which means we get to use the same code to manipulate them, the 95 same code to isolate them (for migrate, etc.), the same code to keep track 96 of the statistics, etc..." [Rik van Riel] 97 98 (2) We want to be able to migrate unevictable pages between nodes for memory 99 defragmentation, workload management and memory hotplug. The linux kernel 100 can only migrate pages that it can successfully isolate from the LRU 101 lists. If we were to maintain pages elsewhere than on an LRU-like list, 102 where they can be found by isolate_lru_page(), we would prevent their 103 migration, unless we reworked migration code to find the unevictable pages 104 itself. 105 106 107The unevictable list does not differentiate between file-backed and anonymous, 108swap-backed pages. This differentiation is only important while the pages are, 109in fact, evictable. 110 111The unevictable list benefits from the "arrayification" of the per-zone LRU 112lists and statistics originally proposed and posted by Christoph Lameter. 113 114The unevictable list does not use the LRU pagevec mechanism. Rather, 115unevictable pages are placed directly on the page's zone's unevictable list 116under the zone lru_lock. This allows us to prevent the stranding of pages on 117the unevictable list when one task has the page isolated from the LRU and other 118tasks are changing the "evictability" state of the page. 119 120 121MEMORY CONTROL GROUP INTERACTION 122-------------------------------- 123 124The unevictable LRU facility interacts with the memory control group [aka 125memory controller; see Documentation/cgroup-v1/memory.txt] by extending the 126lru_list enum. 127 128The memory controller data structure automatically gets a per-zone unevictable 129list as a result of the "arrayification" of the per-zone LRU lists (one per 130lru_list enum element). The memory controller tracks the movement of pages to 131and from the unevictable list. 132 133When a memory control group comes under memory pressure, the controller will 134not attempt to reclaim pages on the unevictable list. This has a couple of 135effects: 136 137 (1) Because the pages are "hidden" from reclaim on the unevictable list, the 138 reclaim process can be more efficient, dealing only with pages that have a 139 chance of being reclaimed. 140 141 (2) On the other hand, if too many of the pages charged to the control group 142 are unevictable, the evictable portion of the working set of the tasks in 143 the control group may not fit into the available memory. This can cause 144 the control group to thrash or to OOM-kill tasks. 145 146 147MARKING ADDRESS SPACES UNEVICTABLE 148---------------------------------- 149 150For facilities such as ramfs none of the pages attached to the address space 151may be evicted. To prevent eviction of any such pages, the AS_UNEVICTABLE 152address space flag is provided, and this can be manipulated by a filesystem 153using a number of wrapper functions: 154 155 (*) void mapping_set_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping); 156 157 Mark the address space as being completely unevictable. 158 159 (*) void mapping_clear_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping); 160 161 Mark the address space as being evictable. 162 163 (*) int mapping_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping); 164 165 Query the address space, and return true if it is completely 166 unevictable. 167 168These are currently used in two places in the kernel: 169 170 (1) By ramfs to mark the address spaces of its inodes when they are created, 171 and this mark remains for the life of the inode. 172 173 (2) By SYSV SHM to mark SHM_LOCK'd address spaces until SHM_UNLOCK is called. 174 175 Note that SHM_LOCK is not required to page in the locked pages if they're 176 swapped out; the application must touch the pages manually if it wants to 177 ensure they're in memory. 178 179 180DETECTING UNEVICTABLE PAGES 181--------------------------- 182 183The function page_evictable() in vmscan.c determines whether a page is 184evictable or not using the query function outlined above [see section "Marking 185address spaces unevictable"] to check the AS_UNEVICTABLE flag. 186 187For address spaces that are so marked after being populated (as SHM regions 188might be), the lock action (eg: SHM_LOCK) can be lazy, and need not populate 189the page tables for the region as does, for example, mlock(), nor need it make 190any special effort to push any pages in the SHM_LOCK'd area to the unevictable 191list. Instead, vmscan will do this if and when it encounters the pages during 192a reclamation scan. 193 194On an unlock action (such as SHM_UNLOCK), the unlocker (eg: shmctl()) must scan 195the pages in the region and "rescue" them from the unevictable list if no other 196condition is keeping them unevictable. If an unevictable region is destroyed, 197the pages are also "rescued" from the unevictable list in the process of 198freeing them. 199 200page_evictable() also checks for mlocked pages by testing an additional page 201flag, PG_mlocked (as wrapped by PageMlocked()), which is set when a page is 202faulted into a VM_LOCKED vma, or found in a vma being VM_LOCKED. 203 204 205VMSCAN'S HANDLING OF UNEVICTABLE PAGES 206-------------------------------------- 207 208If unevictable pages are culled in the fault path, or moved to the unevictable 209list at mlock() or mmap() time, vmscan will not encounter the pages until they 210have become evictable again (via munlock() for example) and have been "rescued" 211from the unevictable list. However, there may be situations where we decide, 212for the sake of expediency, to leave a unevictable page on one of the regular 213active/inactive LRU lists for vmscan to deal with. vmscan checks for such 214pages in all of the shrink_{active|inactive|page}_list() functions and will 215"cull" such pages that it encounters: that is, it diverts those pages to the 216unevictable list for the zone being scanned. 217 218There may be situations where a page is mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA, but the 219page is not marked as PG_mlocked. Such pages will make it all the way to 220shrink_page_list() where they will be detected when vmscan walks the reverse 221map in try_to_unmap(). If try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK, 222shrink_page_list() will cull the page at that point. 223 224To "cull" an unevictable page, vmscan simply puts the page back on the LRU list 225using putback_lru_page() - the inverse operation to isolate_lru_page() - after 226dropping the page lock. Because the condition which makes the page unevictable 227may change once the page is unlocked, putback_lru_page() will recheck the 228unevictable state of a page that it places on the unevictable list. If the 229page has become unevictable, putback_lru_page() removes it from the list and 230retries, including the page_unevictable() test. Because such a race is a rare 231event and movement of pages onto the unevictable list should be rare, these 232extra evictabilty checks should not occur in the majority of calls to 233putback_lru_page(). 234 235 236============= 237MLOCKED PAGES 238============= 239 240The unevictable page list is also useful for mlock(), in addition to ramfs and 241SYSV SHM. Note that mlock() is only available in CONFIG_MMU=y situations; in 242NOMMU situations, all mappings are effectively mlocked. 243 244 245HISTORY 246------- 247 248The "Unevictable mlocked Pages" infrastructure is based on work originally 249posted by Nick Piggin in an RFC patch entitled "mm: mlocked pages off LRU". 250Nick posted his patch as an alternative to a patch posted by Christoph Lameter 251to achieve the same objective: hiding mlocked pages from vmscan. 252 253In Nick's patch, he used one of the struct page LRU list link fields as a count 254of VM_LOCKED VMAs that map the page. This use of the link field for a count 255prevented the management of the pages on an LRU list, and thus mlocked pages 256were not migratable as isolate_lru_page() could not find them, and the LRU list 257link field was not available to the migration subsystem. 258 259Nick resolved this by putting mlocked pages back on the lru list before 260attempting to isolate them, thus abandoning the count of VM_LOCKED VMAs. When 261Nick's patch was integrated with the Unevictable LRU work, the count was 262replaced by walking the reverse map to determine whether any VM_LOCKED VMAs 263mapped the page. More on this below. 264 265 266BASIC MANAGEMENT 267---------------- 268 269mlocked pages - pages mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA - are a class of unevictable 270pages. When such a page has been "noticed" by the memory management subsystem, 271the page is marked with the PG_mlocked flag. This can be manipulated using the 272PageMlocked() functions. 273 274A PG_mlocked page will be placed on the unevictable list when it is added to 275the LRU. Such pages can be "noticed" by memory management in several places: 276 277 (1) in the mlock()/mlockall() system call handlers; 278 279 (2) in the mmap() system call handler when mmapping a region with the 280 MAP_LOCKED flag; 281 282 (3) mmapping a region in a task that has called mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE 283 flag 284 285 (4) in the fault path, if mlocked pages are "culled" in the fault path, 286 and when a VM_LOCKED stack segment is expanded; or 287 288 (5) as mentioned above, in vmscan:shrink_page_list() when attempting to 289 reclaim a page in a VM_LOCKED VMA via try_to_unmap() 290 291all of which result in the VM_LOCKED flag being set for the VMA if it doesn't 292already have it set. 293 294mlocked pages become unlocked and rescued from the unevictable list when: 295 296 (1) mapped in a range unlocked via the munlock()/munlockall() system calls; 297 298 (2) munmap()'d out of the last VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the page, including 299 unmapping at task exit; 300 301 (3) when the page is truncated from the last VM_LOCKED VMA of an mmapped file; 302 or 303 304 (4) before a page is COW'd in a VM_LOCKED VMA. 305 306 307mlock()/mlockall() SYSTEM CALL HANDLING 308--------------------------------------- 309 310Both [do_]mlock() and [do_]mlockall() system call handlers call mlock_fixup() 311for each VMA in the range specified by the call. In the case of mlockall(), 312this is the entire active address space of the task. Note that mlock_fixup() 313is used for both mlocking and munlocking a range of memory. A call to mlock() 314an already VM_LOCKED VMA, or to munlock() a VMA that is not VM_LOCKED is 315treated as a no-op, and mlock_fixup() simply returns. 316 317If the VMA passes some filtering as described in "Filtering Special Vmas" 318below, mlock_fixup() will attempt to merge the VMA with its neighbors or split 319off a subset of the VMA if the range does not cover the entire VMA. Once the 320VMA has been merged or split or neither, mlock_fixup() will call 321populate_vma_page_range() to fault in the pages via get_user_pages() and to 322mark the pages as mlocked via mlock_vma_page(). 323 324Note that the VMA being mlocked might be mapped with PROT_NONE. In this case, 325get_user_pages() will be unable to fault in the pages. That's okay. If pages 326do end up getting faulted into this VM_LOCKED VMA, we'll handle them in the 327fault path or in vmscan. 328 329Also note that a page returned by get_user_pages() could be truncated or 330migrated out from under us, while we're trying to mlock it. To detect this, 331populate_vma_page_range() checks page_mapping() after acquiring the page lock. 332If the page is still associated with its mapping, we'll go ahead and call 333mlock_vma_page(). If the mapping is gone, we just unlock the page and move on. 334In the worst case, this will result in a page mapped in a VM_LOCKED VMA 335remaining on a normal LRU list without being PageMlocked(). Again, vmscan will 336detect and cull such pages. 337 338mlock_vma_page() will call TestSetPageMlocked() for each page returned by 339get_user_pages(). We use TestSetPageMlocked() because the page might already 340be mlocked by another task/VMA and we don't want to do extra work. We 341especially do not want to count an mlocked page more than once in the 342statistics. If the page was already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() need do nothing 343more. 344 345If the page was NOT already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() attempts to isolate the 346page from the LRU, as it is likely on the appropriate active or inactive list 347at that time. If the isolate_lru_page() succeeds, mlock_vma_page() will put 348back the page - by calling putback_lru_page() - which will notice that the page 349is now mlocked and divert the page to the zone's unevictable list. If 350mlock_vma_page() is unable to isolate the page from the LRU, vmscan will handle 351it later if and when it attempts to reclaim the page. 352 353 354FILTERING SPECIAL VMAS 355---------------------- 356 357mlock_fixup() filters several classes of "special" VMAs: 358 3591) VMAs with VM_IO or VM_PFNMAP set are skipped entirely. The pages behind 360 these mappings are inherently pinned, so we don't need to mark them as 361 mlocked. In any case, most of the pages have no struct page in which to so 362 mark the page. Because of this, get_user_pages() will fail for these VMAs, 363 so there is no sense in attempting to visit them. 364 3652) VMAs mapping hugetlbfs page are already effectively pinned into memory. We 366 neither need nor want to mlock() these pages. However, to preserve the 367 prior behavior of mlock() - before the unevictable/mlock changes - 368 mlock_fixup() will call make_pages_present() in the hugetlbfs VMA range to 369 allocate the huge pages and populate the ptes. 370 3713) VMAs with VM_DONTEXPAND are generally userspace mappings of kernel pages, 372 such as the VDSO page, relay channel pages, etc. These pages 373 are inherently unevictable and are not managed on the LRU lists. 374 mlock_fixup() treats these VMAs the same as hugetlbfs VMAs. It calls 375 make_pages_present() to populate the ptes. 376 377Note that for all of these special VMAs, mlock_fixup() does not set the 378VM_LOCKED flag. Therefore, we won't have to deal with them later during 379munlock(), munmap() or task exit. Neither does mlock_fixup() account these 380VMAs against the task's "locked_vm". 381 382 383munlock()/munlockall() SYSTEM CALL HANDLING 384------------------------------------------- 385 386The munlock() and munlockall() system calls are handled by the same functions - 387do_mlock[all]() - as the mlock() and mlockall() system calls with the unlock vs 388lock operation indicated by an argument. So, these system calls are also 389handled by mlock_fixup(). Again, if called for an already munlocked VMA, 390mlock_fixup() simply returns. Because of the VMA filtering discussed above, 391VM_LOCKED will not be set in any "special" VMAs. So, these VMAs will be 392ignored for munlock. 393 394If the VMA is VM_LOCKED, mlock_fixup() again attempts to merge or split off the 395specified range. The range is then munlocked via the function 396populate_vma_page_range() - the same function used to mlock a VMA range - 397passing a flag to indicate that munlock() is being performed. 398 399Because the VMA access protections could have been changed to PROT_NONE after 400faulting in and mlocking pages, get_user_pages() was unreliable for visiting 401these pages for munlocking. Because we don't want to leave pages mlocked, 402get_user_pages() was enhanced to accept a flag to ignore the permissions when 403fetching the pages - all of which should be resident as a result of previous 404mlocking. 405 406For munlock(), populate_vma_page_range() unlocks individual pages by calling 407munlock_vma_page(). munlock_vma_page() unconditionally clears the PG_mlocked 408flag using TestClearPageMlocked(). As with mlock_vma_page(), 409munlock_vma_page() use the Test*PageMlocked() function to handle the case where 410the page might have already been unlocked by another task. If the page was 411mlocked, munlock_vma_page() updates that zone statistics for the number of 412mlocked pages. Note, however, that at this point we haven't checked whether 413the page is mapped by other VM_LOCKED VMAs. 414 415We can't call try_to_munlock(), the function that walks the reverse map to 416check for other VM_LOCKED VMAs, without first isolating the page from the LRU. 417try_to_munlock() is a variant of try_to_unmap() and thus requires that the page 418not be on an LRU list [more on these below]. However, the call to 419isolate_lru_page() could fail, in which case we couldn't try_to_munlock(). So, 420we go ahead and clear PG_mlocked up front, as this might be the only chance we 421have. If we can successfully isolate the page, we go ahead and 422try_to_munlock(), which will restore the PG_mlocked flag and update the zone 423page statistics if it finds another VMA holding the page mlocked. If we fail 424to isolate the page, we'll have left a potentially mlocked page on the LRU. 425This is fine, because we'll catch it later if and if vmscan tries to reclaim 426the page. This should be relatively rare. 427 428 429MIGRATING MLOCKED PAGES 430----------------------- 431 432A page that is being migrated has been isolated from the LRU lists and is held 433locked across unmapping of the page, updating the page's address space entry 434and copying the contents and state, until the page table entry has been 435replaced with an entry that refers to the new page. Linux supports migration 436of mlocked pages and other unevictable pages. This involves simply moving the 437PG_mlocked and PG_unevictable states from the old page to the new page. 438 439Note that page migration can race with mlocking or munlocking of the same page. 440This has been discussed from the mlock/munlock perspective in the respective 441sections above. Both processes (migration and m[un]locking) hold the page 442locked. This provides the first level of synchronization. Page migration 443zeros out the page_mapping of the old page before unlocking it, so m[un]lock 444can skip these pages by testing the page mapping under page lock. 445 446To complete page migration, we place the new and old pages back onto the LRU 447after dropping the page lock. The "unneeded" page - old page on success, new 448page on failure - will be freed when the reference count held by the migration 449process is released. To ensure that we don't strand pages on the unevictable 450list because of a race between munlock and migration, page migration uses the 451putback_lru_page() function to add migrated pages back to the LRU. 452 453 454COMPACTING MLOCKED PAGES 455------------------------ 456 457The unevictable LRU can be scanned for compactable regions and the default 458behavior is to do so. /proc/sys/vm/compact_unevictable_allowed controls 459this behavior (see Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt). Once scanning of the 460unevictable LRU is enabled, the work of compaction is mostly handled by 461the page migration code and the same work flow as described in MIGRATING 462MLOCKED PAGES will apply. 463 464MLOCKING TRANSPARENT HUGE PAGES 465------------------------------- 466 467A transparent huge page is represented by a single entry on an LRU list. 468Therefore, we can only make unevictable an entire compound page, not 469individual subpages. 470 471If a user tries to mlock() part of a huge page, we want the rest of the 472page to be reclaimable. 473 474We cannot just split the page on partial mlock() as split_huge_page() can 475fail and new intermittent failure mode for the syscall is undesirable. 476 477We handle this by keeping PTE-mapped huge pages on normal LRU lists: the 478PMD on border of VM_LOCKED VMA will be split into PTE table. 479 480This way the huge page is accessible for vmscan. Under memory pressure the 481page will be split, subpages which belong to VM_LOCKED VMAs will be moved 482to unevictable LRU and the rest can be reclaimed. 483 484See also comment in follow_trans_huge_pmd(). 485 486mmap(MAP_LOCKED) SYSTEM CALL HANDLING 487------------------------------------- 488 489In addition the mlock()/mlockall() system calls, an application can request 490that a region of memory be mlocked supplying the MAP_LOCKED flag to the mmap() 491call. There is one important and subtle difference here, though. mmap() + mlock() 492will fail if the range cannot be faulted in (e.g. because mm_populate fails) 493and returns with ENOMEM while mmap(MAP_LOCKED) will not fail. The mmaped 494area will still have properties of the locked area - aka. pages will not get 495swapped out - but major page faults to fault memory in might still happen. 496 497Furthermore, any mmap() call or brk() call that expands the heap by a 498task that has previously called mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE flag will result 499in the newly mapped memory being mlocked. Before the unevictable/mlock 500changes, the kernel simply called make_pages_present() to allocate pages and 501populate the page table. 502 503To mlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the 504mmap() handler and task address space expansion functions call 505populate_vma_page_range() specifying the vma and the address range to mlock. 506 507The callers of populate_vma_page_range() will have already added the memory range 508to be mlocked to the task's "locked_vm". To account for filtered VMAs, 509populate_vma_page_range() returns the number of pages NOT mlocked. All of the 510callers then subtract a non-negative return value from the task's locked_vm. A 511negative return value represent an error - for example, from get_user_pages() 512attempting to fault in a VMA with PROT_NONE access. In this case, we leave the 513memory range accounted as locked_vm, as the protections could be changed later 514and pages allocated into that region. 515 516 517munmap()/exit()/exec() SYSTEM CALL HANDLING 518------------------------------------------- 519 520When unmapping an mlocked region of memory, whether by an explicit call to 521munmap() or via an internal unmap from exit() or exec() processing, we must 522munlock the pages if we're removing the last VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the pages. 523Before the unevictable/mlock changes, mlocking did not mark the pages in any 524way, so unmapping them required no processing. 525 526To munlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the 527munmap() handler and task address space call tear down function 528munlock_vma_pages_all(). The name reflects the observation that one always 529specifies the entire VMA range when munlock()ing during unmap of a region. 530Because of the VMA filtering when mlocking() regions, only "normal" VMAs that 531actually contain mlocked pages will be passed to munlock_vma_pages_all(). 532 533munlock_vma_pages_all() clears the VM_LOCKED VMA flag and, like mlock_fixup() 534for the munlock case, calls __munlock_vma_pages_range() to walk the page table 535for the VMA's memory range and munlock_vma_page() each resident page mapped by 536the VMA. This effectively munlocks the page, only if this is the last 537VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the page. 538 539 540try_to_unmap() 541-------------- 542 543Pages can, of course, be mapped into multiple VMAs. Some of these VMAs may 544have VM_LOCKED flag set. It is possible for a page mapped into one or more 545VM_LOCKED VMAs not to have the PG_mlocked flag set and therefore reside on one 546of the active or inactive LRU lists. This could happen if, for example, a task 547in the process of munlocking the page could not isolate the page from the LRU. 548As a result, vmscan/shrink_page_list() might encounter such a page as described 549in section "vmscan's handling of unevictable pages". To handle this situation, 550try_to_unmap() checks for VM_LOCKED VMAs while it is walking a page's reverse 551map. 552 553try_to_unmap() is always called, by either vmscan for reclaim or for page 554migration, with the argument page locked and isolated from the LRU. Separate 555functions handle anonymous and mapped file and KSM pages, as these types of 556pages have different reverse map lookup mechanisms, with different locking. 557In each case, whether rmap_walk_anon() or rmap_walk_file() or rmap_walk_ksm(), 558it will call try_to_unmap_one() for every VMA which might contain the page. 559 560When trying to reclaim, if try_to_unmap_one() finds the page in a VM_LOCKED 561VMA, it will then mlock the page via mlock_vma_page() instead of unmapping it, 562and return SWAP_MLOCK to indicate that the page is unevictable: and the scan 563stops there. 564 565mlock_vma_page() is called while holding the page table's lock (in addition 566to the page lock, and the rmap lock): to serialize against concurrent mlock or 567munlock or munmap system calls, mm teardown (munlock_vma_pages_all), reclaim, 568holepunching, and truncation of file pages and their anonymous COWed pages. 569 570 571try_to_munlock() REVERSE MAP SCAN 572--------------------------------- 573 574 [!] TODO/FIXME: a better name might be page_mlocked() - analogous to the 575 page_referenced() reverse map walker. 576 577When munlock_vma_page() [see section "munlock()/munlockall() System Call 578Handling" above] tries to munlock a page, it needs to determine whether or not 579the page is mapped by any VM_LOCKED VMA without actually attempting to unmap 580all PTEs from the page. For this purpose, the unevictable/mlock infrastructure 581introduced a variant of try_to_unmap() called try_to_munlock(). 582 583try_to_munlock() calls the same functions as try_to_unmap() for anonymous and 584mapped file and KSM pages with a flag argument specifying unlock versus unmap 585processing. Again, these functions walk the respective reverse maps looking 586for VM_LOCKED VMAs. When such a VMA is found, as in the try_to_unmap() case, 587the functions mlock the page via mlock_vma_page() and return SWAP_MLOCK. This 588undoes the pre-clearing of the page's PG_mlocked done by munlock_vma_page. 589 590Note that try_to_munlock()'s reverse map walk must visit every VMA in a page's 591reverse map to determine that a page is NOT mapped into any VM_LOCKED VMA. 592However, the scan can terminate when it encounters a VM_LOCKED VMA. 593Although try_to_munlock() might be called a great many times when munlocking a 594large region or tearing down a large address space that has been mlocked via 595mlockall(), overall this is a fairly rare event. 596 597 598PAGE RECLAIM IN shrink_*_list() 599------------------------------- 600 601shrink_active_list() culls any obviously unevictable pages - i.e. 602!page_evictable(page) - diverting these to the unevictable list. 603However, shrink_active_list() only sees unevictable pages that made it onto the 604active/inactive lru lists. Note that these pages do not have PageUnevictable 605set - otherwise they would be on the unevictable list and shrink_active_list 606would never see them. 607 608Some examples of these unevictable pages on the LRU lists are: 609 610 (1) ramfs pages that have been placed on the LRU lists when first allocated. 611 612 (2) SHM_LOCK'd shared memory pages. shmctl(SHM_LOCK) does not attempt to 613 allocate or fault in the pages in the shared memory region. This happens 614 when an application accesses the page the first time after SHM_LOCK'ing 615 the segment. 616 617 (3) mlocked pages that could not be isolated from the LRU and moved to the 618 unevictable list in mlock_vma_page(). 619 620shrink_inactive_list() also diverts any unevictable pages that it finds on the 621inactive lists to the appropriate zone's unevictable list. 622 623shrink_inactive_list() should only see SHM_LOCK'd pages that became SHM_LOCK'd 624after shrink_active_list() had moved them to the inactive list, or pages mapped 625into VM_LOCKED VMAs that munlock_vma_page() couldn't isolate from the LRU to 626recheck via try_to_munlock(). shrink_inactive_list() won't notice the latter, 627but will pass on to shrink_page_list(). 628 629shrink_page_list() again culls obviously unevictable pages that it could 630encounter for similar reason to shrink_inactive_list(). Pages mapped into 631VM_LOCKED VMAs but without PG_mlocked set will make it all the way to 632try_to_unmap(). shrink_page_list() will divert them to the unevictable list 633when try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK, as discussed above. 634