1.. _unevictable_lru: 2 3============================== 4Unevictable LRU Infrastructure 5============================== 6 7.. contents:: :local: 8 9 10Introduction 11============ 12 13This document describes the Linux memory manager's "Unevictable LRU" 14infrastructure and the use of this to manage several types of "unevictable" 15pages. 16 17The document attempts to provide the overall rationale behind this mechanism 18and the rationale for some of the design decisions that drove the 19implementation. The latter design rationale is discussed in the context of an 20implementation description. Admittedly, one can obtain the implementation 21details - the "what does it do?" - by reading the code. One hopes that the 22descriptions below add value by provide the answer to "why does it do that?". 23 24 25 26The Unevictable LRU 27=================== 28 29The Unevictable LRU facility adds an additional LRU list to track unevictable 30pages and to hide these pages from vmscan. This mechanism is based on a patch 31by Larry Woodman of Red Hat to address several scalability problems with page 32reclaim in Linux. The problems have been observed at customer sites on large 33memory x86_64 systems. 34 35To illustrate this with an example, a non-NUMA x86_64 platform with 128GB of 36main memory will have over 32 million 4k pages in a single node. When a large 37fraction of these pages are not evictable for any reason [see below], vmscan 38will spend a lot of time scanning the LRU lists looking for the small fraction 39of pages that are evictable. This can result in a situation where all CPUs are 40spending 100% of their time in vmscan for hours or days on end, with the system 41completely unresponsive. 42 43The unevictable list addresses the following classes of unevictable pages: 44 45 * Those owned by ramfs. 46 47 * Those mapped into SHM_LOCK'd shared memory regions. 48 49 * Those mapped into VM_LOCKED [mlock()ed] VMAs. 50 51The infrastructure may also be able to handle other conditions that make pages 52unevictable, either by definition or by circumstance, in the future. 53 54 55The Unevictable Page List 56------------------------- 57 58The Unevictable LRU infrastructure consists of an additional, per-node, LRU list 59called the "unevictable" list and an associated page flag, PG_unevictable, to 60indicate that the page is being managed on the unevictable list. 61 62The PG_unevictable flag is analogous to, and mutually exclusive with, the 63PG_active flag in that it indicates on which LRU list a page resides when 64PG_lru is set. 65 66The Unevictable LRU infrastructure maintains unevictable pages on an additional 67LRU list for a few reasons: 68 69 (1) We get to "treat unevictable pages just like we treat other pages in the 70 system - which means we get to use the same code to manipulate them, the 71 same code to isolate them (for migrate, etc.), the same code to keep track 72 of the statistics, etc..." [Rik van Riel] 73 74 (2) We want to be able to migrate unevictable pages between nodes for memory 75 defragmentation, workload management and memory hotplug. The linux kernel 76 can only migrate pages that it can successfully isolate from the LRU 77 lists. If we were to maintain pages elsewhere than on an LRU-like list, 78 where they can be found by isolate_lru_page(), we would prevent their 79 migration, unless we reworked migration code to find the unevictable pages 80 itself. 81 82 83The unevictable list does not differentiate between file-backed and anonymous, 84swap-backed pages. This differentiation is only important while the pages are, 85in fact, evictable. 86 87The unevictable list benefits from the "arrayification" of the per-node LRU 88lists and statistics originally proposed and posted by Christoph Lameter. 89 90 91Memory Control Group Interaction 92-------------------------------- 93 94The unevictable LRU facility interacts with the memory control group [aka 95memory controller; see Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v1/memory.rst] by extending the 96lru_list enum. 97 98The memory controller data structure automatically gets a per-node unevictable 99list as a result of the "arrayification" of the per-node LRU lists (one per 100lru_list enum element). The memory controller tracks the movement of pages to 101and from the unevictable list. 102 103When a memory control group comes under memory pressure, the controller will 104not attempt to reclaim pages on the unevictable list. This has a couple of 105effects: 106 107 (1) Because the pages are "hidden" from reclaim on the unevictable list, the 108 reclaim process can be more efficient, dealing only with pages that have a 109 chance of being reclaimed. 110 111 (2) On the other hand, if too many of the pages charged to the control group 112 are unevictable, the evictable portion of the working set of the tasks in 113 the control group may not fit into the available memory. This can cause 114 the control group to thrash or to OOM-kill tasks. 115 116 117.. _mark_addr_space_unevict: 118 119Marking Address Spaces Unevictable 120---------------------------------- 121 122For facilities such as ramfs none of the pages attached to the address space 123may be evicted. To prevent eviction of any such pages, the AS_UNEVICTABLE 124address space flag is provided, and this can be manipulated by a filesystem 125using a number of wrapper functions: 126 127 * ``void mapping_set_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping);`` 128 129 Mark the address space as being completely unevictable. 130 131 * ``void mapping_clear_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping);`` 132 133 Mark the address space as being evictable. 134 135 * ``int mapping_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping);`` 136 137 Query the address space, and return true if it is completely 138 unevictable. 139 140These are currently used in three places in the kernel: 141 142 (1) By ramfs to mark the address spaces of its inodes when they are created, 143 and this mark remains for the life of the inode. 144 145 (2) By SYSV SHM to mark SHM_LOCK'd address spaces until SHM_UNLOCK is called. 146 147 Note that SHM_LOCK is not required to page in the locked pages if they're 148 swapped out; the application must touch the pages manually if it wants to 149 ensure they're in memory. 150 151 (3) By the i915 driver to mark pinned address space until it's unpinned. The 152 amount of unevictable memory marked by i915 driver is roughly the bounded 153 object size in debugfs/dri/0/i915_gem_objects. 154 155 156Detecting Unevictable Pages 157--------------------------- 158 159The function page_evictable() in vmscan.c determines whether a page is 160evictable or not using the query function outlined above [see section 161:ref:`Marking address spaces unevictable <mark_addr_space_unevict>`] 162to check the AS_UNEVICTABLE flag. 163 164For address spaces that are so marked after being populated (as SHM regions 165might be), the lock action (eg: SHM_LOCK) can be lazy, and need not populate 166the page tables for the region as does, for example, mlock(), nor need it make 167any special effort to push any pages in the SHM_LOCK'd area to the unevictable 168list. Instead, vmscan will do this if and when it encounters the pages during 169a reclamation scan. 170 171On an unlock action (such as SHM_UNLOCK), the unlocker (eg: shmctl()) must scan 172the pages in the region and "rescue" them from the unevictable list if no other 173condition is keeping them unevictable. If an unevictable region is destroyed, 174the pages are also "rescued" from the unevictable list in the process of 175freeing them. 176 177page_evictable() also checks for mlocked pages by testing an additional page 178flag, PG_mlocked (as wrapped by PageMlocked()), which is set when a page is 179faulted into a VM_LOCKED vma, or found in a vma being VM_LOCKED. 180 181 182Vmscan's Handling of Unevictable Pages 183-------------------------------------- 184 185If unevictable pages are culled in the fault path, or moved to the unevictable 186list at mlock() or mmap() time, vmscan will not encounter the pages until they 187have become evictable again (via munlock() for example) and have been "rescued" 188from the unevictable list. However, there may be situations where we decide, 189for the sake of expediency, to leave a unevictable page on one of the regular 190active/inactive LRU lists for vmscan to deal with. vmscan checks for such 191pages in all of the shrink_{active|inactive|page}_list() functions and will 192"cull" such pages that it encounters: that is, it diverts those pages to the 193unevictable list for the node being scanned. 194 195There may be situations where a page is mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA, but the 196page is not marked as PG_mlocked. Such pages will make it all the way to 197shrink_page_list() where they will be detected when vmscan walks the reverse 198map in try_to_unmap(). If try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK, 199shrink_page_list() will cull the page at that point. 200 201To "cull" an unevictable page, vmscan simply puts the page back on the LRU list 202using putback_lru_page() - the inverse operation to isolate_lru_page() - after 203dropping the page lock. Because the condition which makes the page unevictable 204may change once the page is unlocked, putback_lru_page() will recheck the 205unevictable state of a page that it places on the unevictable list. If the 206page has become unevictable, putback_lru_page() removes it from the list and 207retries, including the page_unevictable() test. Because such a race is a rare 208event and movement of pages onto the unevictable list should be rare, these 209extra evictabilty checks should not occur in the majority of calls to 210putback_lru_page(). 211 212 213MLOCKED Pages 214============= 215 216The unevictable page list is also useful for mlock(), in addition to ramfs and 217SYSV SHM. Note that mlock() is only available in CONFIG_MMU=y situations; in 218NOMMU situations, all mappings are effectively mlocked. 219 220 221History 222------- 223 224The "Unevictable mlocked Pages" infrastructure is based on work originally 225posted by Nick Piggin in an RFC patch entitled "mm: mlocked pages off LRU". 226Nick posted his patch as an alternative to a patch posted by Christoph Lameter 227to achieve the same objective: hiding mlocked pages from vmscan. 228 229In Nick's patch, he used one of the struct page LRU list link fields as a count 230of VM_LOCKED VMAs that map the page. This use of the link field for a count 231prevented the management of the pages on an LRU list, and thus mlocked pages 232were not migratable as isolate_lru_page() could not find them, and the LRU list 233link field was not available to the migration subsystem. 234 235Nick resolved this by putting mlocked pages back on the lru list before 236attempting to isolate them, thus abandoning the count of VM_LOCKED VMAs. When 237Nick's patch was integrated with the Unevictable LRU work, the count was 238replaced by walking the reverse map to determine whether any VM_LOCKED VMAs 239mapped the page. More on this below. 240 241 242Basic Management 243---------------- 244 245mlocked pages - pages mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA - are a class of unevictable 246pages. When such a page has been "noticed" by the memory management subsystem, 247the page is marked with the PG_mlocked flag. This can be manipulated using the 248PageMlocked() functions. 249 250A PG_mlocked page will be placed on the unevictable list when it is added to 251the LRU. Such pages can be "noticed" by memory management in several places: 252 253 (1) in the mlock()/mlockall() system call handlers; 254 255 (2) in the mmap() system call handler when mmapping a region with the 256 MAP_LOCKED flag; 257 258 (3) mmapping a region in a task that has called mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE 259 flag 260 261 (4) in the fault path, if mlocked pages are "culled" in the fault path, 262 and when a VM_LOCKED stack segment is expanded; or 263 264 (5) as mentioned above, in vmscan:shrink_page_list() when attempting to 265 reclaim a page in a VM_LOCKED VMA via try_to_unmap() 266 267all of which result in the VM_LOCKED flag being set for the VMA if it doesn't 268already have it set. 269 270mlocked pages become unlocked and rescued from the unevictable list when: 271 272 (1) mapped in a range unlocked via the munlock()/munlockall() system calls; 273 274 (2) munmap()'d out of the last VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the page, including 275 unmapping at task exit; 276 277 (3) when the page is truncated from the last VM_LOCKED VMA of an mmapped file; 278 or 279 280 (4) before a page is COW'd in a VM_LOCKED VMA. 281 282 283mlock()/mlockall() System Call Handling 284--------------------------------------- 285 286Both [do\_]mlock() and [do\_]mlockall() system call handlers call mlock_fixup() 287for each VMA in the range specified by the call. In the case of mlockall(), 288this is the entire active address space of the task. Note that mlock_fixup() 289is used for both mlocking and munlocking a range of memory. A call to mlock() 290an already VM_LOCKED VMA, or to munlock() a VMA that is not VM_LOCKED is 291treated as a no-op, and mlock_fixup() simply returns. 292 293If the VMA passes some filtering as described in "Filtering Special Vmas" 294below, mlock_fixup() will attempt to merge the VMA with its neighbors or split 295off a subset of the VMA if the range does not cover the entire VMA. Once the 296VMA has been merged or split or neither, mlock_fixup() will call 297populate_vma_page_range() to fault in the pages via get_user_pages() and to 298mark the pages as mlocked via mlock_vma_page(). 299 300Note that the VMA being mlocked might be mapped with PROT_NONE. In this case, 301get_user_pages() will be unable to fault in the pages. That's okay. If pages 302do end up getting faulted into this VM_LOCKED VMA, we'll handle them in the 303fault path or in vmscan. 304 305Also note that a page returned by get_user_pages() could be truncated or 306migrated out from under us, while we're trying to mlock it. To detect this, 307populate_vma_page_range() checks page_mapping() after acquiring the page lock. 308If the page is still associated with its mapping, we'll go ahead and call 309mlock_vma_page(). If the mapping is gone, we just unlock the page and move on. 310In the worst case, this will result in a page mapped in a VM_LOCKED VMA 311remaining on a normal LRU list without being PageMlocked(). Again, vmscan will 312detect and cull such pages. 313 314mlock_vma_page() will call TestSetPageMlocked() for each page returned by 315get_user_pages(). We use TestSetPageMlocked() because the page might already 316be mlocked by another task/VMA and we don't want to do extra work. We 317especially do not want to count an mlocked page more than once in the 318statistics. If the page was already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() need do nothing 319more. 320 321If the page was NOT already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() attempts to isolate the 322page from the LRU, as it is likely on the appropriate active or inactive list 323at that time. If the isolate_lru_page() succeeds, mlock_vma_page() will put 324back the page - by calling putback_lru_page() - which will notice that the page 325is now mlocked and divert the page to the node's unevictable list. If 326mlock_vma_page() is unable to isolate the page from the LRU, vmscan will handle 327it later if and when it attempts to reclaim the page. 328 329 330Filtering Special VMAs 331---------------------- 332 333mlock_fixup() filters several classes of "special" VMAs: 334 3351) VMAs with VM_IO or VM_PFNMAP set are skipped entirely. The pages behind 336 these mappings are inherently pinned, so we don't need to mark them as 337 mlocked. In any case, most of the pages have no struct page in which to so 338 mark the page. Because of this, get_user_pages() will fail for these VMAs, 339 so there is no sense in attempting to visit them. 340 3412) VMAs mapping hugetlbfs page are already effectively pinned into memory. We 342 neither need nor want to mlock() these pages. However, to preserve the 343 prior behavior of mlock() - before the unevictable/mlock changes - 344 mlock_fixup() will call make_pages_present() in the hugetlbfs VMA range to 345 allocate the huge pages and populate the ptes. 346 3473) VMAs with VM_DONTEXPAND are generally userspace mappings of kernel pages, 348 such as the VDSO page, relay channel pages, etc. These pages 349 are inherently unevictable and are not managed on the LRU lists. 350 mlock_fixup() treats these VMAs the same as hugetlbfs VMAs. It calls 351 make_pages_present() to populate the ptes. 352 353Note that for all of these special VMAs, mlock_fixup() does not set the 354VM_LOCKED flag. Therefore, we won't have to deal with them later during 355munlock(), munmap() or task exit. Neither does mlock_fixup() account these 356VMAs against the task's "locked_vm". 357 358.. _munlock_munlockall_handling: 359 360munlock()/munlockall() System Call Handling 361------------------------------------------- 362 363The munlock() and munlockall() system calls are handled by the same functions - 364do_mlock[all]() - as the mlock() and mlockall() system calls with the unlock vs 365lock operation indicated by an argument. So, these system calls are also 366handled by mlock_fixup(). Again, if called for an already munlocked VMA, 367mlock_fixup() simply returns. Because of the VMA filtering discussed above, 368VM_LOCKED will not be set in any "special" VMAs. So, these VMAs will be 369ignored for munlock. 370 371If the VMA is VM_LOCKED, mlock_fixup() again attempts to merge or split off the 372specified range. The range is then munlocked via the function 373populate_vma_page_range() - the same function used to mlock a VMA range - 374passing a flag to indicate that munlock() is being performed. 375 376Because the VMA access protections could have been changed to PROT_NONE after 377faulting in and mlocking pages, get_user_pages() was unreliable for visiting 378these pages for munlocking. Because we don't want to leave pages mlocked, 379get_user_pages() was enhanced to accept a flag to ignore the permissions when 380fetching the pages - all of which should be resident as a result of previous 381mlocking. 382 383For munlock(), populate_vma_page_range() unlocks individual pages by calling 384munlock_vma_page(). munlock_vma_page() unconditionally clears the PG_mlocked 385flag using TestClearPageMlocked(). As with mlock_vma_page(), 386munlock_vma_page() use the Test*PageMlocked() function to handle the case where 387the page might have already been unlocked by another task. If the page was 388mlocked, munlock_vma_page() updates that zone statistics for the number of 389mlocked pages. Note, however, that at this point we haven't checked whether 390the page is mapped by other VM_LOCKED VMAs. 391 392We can't call page_mlock(), the function that walks the reverse map to 393check for other VM_LOCKED VMAs, without first isolating the page from the LRU. 394page_mlock() is a variant of try_to_unmap() and thus requires that the page 395not be on an LRU list [more on these below]. However, the call to 396isolate_lru_page() could fail, in which case we can't call page_mlock(). So, 397we go ahead and clear PG_mlocked up front, as this might be the only chance we 398have. If we can successfully isolate the page, we go ahead and call 399page_mlock(), which will restore the PG_mlocked flag and update the zone 400page statistics if it finds another VMA holding the page mlocked. If we fail 401to isolate the page, we'll have left a potentially mlocked page on the LRU. 402This is fine, because we'll catch it later if and if vmscan tries to reclaim 403the page. This should be relatively rare. 404 405 406Migrating MLOCKED Pages 407----------------------- 408 409A page that is being migrated has been isolated from the LRU lists and is held 410locked across unmapping of the page, updating the page's address space entry 411and copying the contents and state, until the page table entry has been 412replaced with an entry that refers to the new page. Linux supports migration 413of mlocked pages and other unevictable pages. This involves simply moving the 414PG_mlocked and PG_unevictable states from the old page to the new page. 415 416Note that page migration can race with mlocking or munlocking of the same page. 417This has been discussed from the mlock/munlock perspective in the respective 418sections above. Both processes (migration and m[un]locking) hold the page 419locked. This provides the first level of synchronization. Page migration 420zeros out the page_mapping of the old page before unlocking it, so m[un]lock 421can skip these pages by testing the page mapping under page lock. 422 423To complete page migration, we place the new and old pages back onto the LRU 424after dropping the page lock. The "unneeded" page - old page on success, new 425page on failure - will be freed when the reference count held by the migration 426process is released. To ensure that we don't strand pages on the unevictable 427list because of a race between munlock and migration, page migration uses the 428putback_lru_page() function to add migrated pages back to the LRU. 429 430 431Compacting MLOCKED Pages 432------------------------ 433 434The unevictable LRU can be scanned for compactable regions and the default 435behavior is to do so. /proc/sys/vm/compact_unevictable_allowed controls 436this behavior (see Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst). Once scanning of the 437unevictable LRU is enabled, the work of compaction is mostly handled by 438the page migration code and the same work flow as described in MIGRATING 439MLOCKED PAGES will apply. 440 441MLOCKING Transparent Huge Pages 442------------------------------- 443 444A transparent huge page is represented by a single entry on an LRU list. 445Therefore, we can only make unevictable an entire compound page, not 446individual subpages. 447 448If a user tries to mlock() part of a huge page, we want the rest of the 449page to be reclaimable. 450 451We cannot just split the page on partial mlock() as split_huge_page() can 452fail and new intermittent failure mode for the syscall is undesirable. 453 454We handle this by keeping PTE-mapped huge pages on normal LRU lists: the 455PMD on border of VM_LOCKED VMA will be split into PTE table. 456 457This way the huge page is accessible for vmscan. Under memory pressure the 458page will be split, subpages which belong to VM_LOCKED VMAs will be moved 459to unevictable LRU and the rest can be reclaimed. 460 461See also comment in follow_trans_huge_pmd(). 462 463mmap(MAP_LOCKED) System Call Handling 464------------------------------------- 465 466In addition the mlock()/mlockall() system calls, an application can request 467that a region of memory be mlocked supplying the MAP_LOCKED flag to the mmap() 468call. There is one important and subtle difference here, though. mmap() + mlock() 469will fail if the range cannot be faulted in (e.g. because mm_populate fails) 470and returns with ENOMEM while mmap(MAP_LOCKED) will not fail. The mmaped 471area will still have properties of the locked area - aka. pages will not get 472swapped out - but major page faults to fault memory in might still happen. 473 474Furthermore, any mmap() call or brk() call that expands the heap by a 475task that has previously called mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE flag will result 476in the newly mapped memory being mlocked. Before the unevictable/mlock 477changes, the kernel simply called make_pages_present() to allocate pages and 478populate the page table. 479 480To mlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the 481mmap() handler and task address space expansion functions call 482populate_vma_page_range() specifying the vma and the address range to mlock. 483 484The callers of populate_vma_page_range() will have already added the memory range 485to be mlocked to the task's "locked_vm". To account for filtered VMAs, 486populate_vma_page_range() returns the number of pages NOT mlocked. All of the 487callers then subtract a non-negative return value from the task's locked_vm. A 488negative return value represent an error - for example, from get_user_pages() 489attempting to fault in a VMA with PROT_NONE access. In this case, we leave the 490memory range accounted as locked_vm, as the protections could be changed later 491and pages allocated into that region. 492 493 494munmap()/exit()/exec() System Call Handling 495------------------------------------------- 496 497When unmapping an mlocked region of memory, whether by an explicit call to 498munmap() or via an internal unmap from exit() or exec() processing, we must 499munlock the pages if we're removing the last VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the pages. 500Before the unevictable/mlock changes, mlocking did not mark the pages in any 501way, so unmapping them required no processing. 502 503To munlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the 504munmap() handler and task address space call tear down function 505munlock_vma_pages_all(). The name reflects the observation that one always 506specifies the entire VMA range when munlock()ing during unmap of a region. 507Because of the VMA filtering when mlocking() regions, only "normal" VMAs that 508actually contain mlocked pages will be passed to munlock_vma_pages_all(). 509 510munlock_vma_pages_all() clears the VM_LOCKED VMA flag and, like mlock_fixup() 511for the munlock case, calls __munlock_vma_pages_range() to walk the page table 512for the VMA's memory range and munlock_vma_page() each resident page mapped by 513the VMA. This effectively munlocks the page, only if this is the last 514VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the page. 515 516 517try_to_unmap() 518-------------- 519 520Pages can, of course, be mapped into multiple VMAs. Some of these VMAs may 521have VM_LOCKED flag set. It is possible for a page mapped into one or more 522VM_LOCKED VMAs not to have the PG_mlocked flag set and therefore reside on one 523of the active or inactive LRU lists. This could happen if, for example, a task 524in the process of munlocking the page could not isolate the page from the LRU. 525As a result, vmscan/shrink_page_list() might encounter such a page as described 526in section "vmscan's handling of unevictable pages". To handle this situation, 527try_to_unmap() checks for VM_LOCKED VMAs while it is walking a page's reverse 528map. 529 530try_to_unmap() is always called, by either vmscan for reclaim or for page 531migration, with the argument page locked and isolated from the LRU. Separate 532functions handle anonymous and mapped file and KSM pages, as these types of 533pages have different reverse map lookup mechanisms, with different locking. 534In each case, whether rmap_walk_anon() or rmap_walk_file() or rmap_walk_ksm(), 535it will call try_to_unmap_one() for every VMA which might contain the page. 536 537When trying to reclaim, if try_to_unmap_one() finds the page in a VM_LOCKED 538VMA, it will then mlock the page via mlock_vma_page() instead of unmapping it, 539and return SWAP_MLOCK to indicate that the page is unevictable: and the scan 540stops there. 541 542mlock_vma_page() is called while holding the page table's lock (in addition 543to the page lock, and the rmap lock): to serialize against concurrent mlock or 544munlock or munmap system calls, mm teardown (munlock_vma_pages_all), reclaim, 545holepunching, and truncation of file pages and their anonymous COWed pages. 546 547 548page_mlock() Reverse Map Scan 549--------------------------------- 550 551When munlock_vma_page() [see section :ref:`munlock()/munlockall() System Call 552Handling <munlock_munlockall_handling>` above] tries to munlock a 553page, it needs to determine whether or not the page is mapped by any 554VM_LOCKED VMA without actually attempting to unmap all PTEs from the 555page. For this purpose, the unevictable/mlock infrastructure 556introduced a variant of try_to_unmap() called page_mlock(). 557 558page_mlock() walks the respective reverse maps looking for VM_LOCKED VMAs. When 559such a VMA is found the page is mlocked via mlock_vma_page(). This undoes the 560pre-clearing of the page's PG_mlocked done by munlock_vma_page. 561 562Note that page_mlock()'s reverse map walk must visit every VMA in a page's 563reverse map to determine that a page is NOT mapped into any VM_LOCKED VMA. 564However, the scan can terminate when it encounters a VM_LOCKED VMA. 565Although page_mlock() might be called a great many times when munlocking a 566large region or tearing down a large address space that has been mlocked via 567mlockall(), overall this is a fairly rare event. 568 569 570Page Reclaim in shrink_*_list() 571------------------------------- 572 573shrink_active_list() culls any obviously unevictable pages - i.e. 574!page_evictable(page) - diverting these to the unevictable list. 575However, shrink_active_list() only sees unevictable pages that made it onto the 576active/inactive lru lists. Note that these pages do not have PageUnevictable 577set - otherwise they would be on the unevictable list and shrink_active_list 578would never see them. 579 580Some examples of these unevictable pages on the LRU lists are: 581 582 (1) ramfs pages that have been placed on the LRU lists when first allocated. 583 584 (2) SHM_LOCK'd shared memory pages. shmctl(SHM_LOCK) does not attempt to 585 allocate or fault in the pages in the shared memory region. This happens 586 when an application accesses the page the first time after SHM_LOCK'ing 587 the segment. 588 589 (3) mlocked pages that could not be isolated from the LRU and moved to the 590 unevictable list in mlock_vma_page(). 591 592shrink_inactive_list() also diverts any unevictable pages that it finds on the 593inactive lists to the appropriate node's unevictable list. 594 595shrink_inactive_list() should only see SHM_LOCK'd pages that became SHM_LOCK'd 596after shrink_active_list() had moved them to the inactive list, or pages mapped 597into VM_LOCKED VMAs that munlock_vma_page() couldn't isolate from the LRU to 598recheck via page_mlock(). shrink_inactive_list() won't notice the latter, 599but will pass on to shrink_page_list(). 600 601shrink_page_list() again culls obviously unevictable pages that it could 602encounter for similar reason to shrink_inactive_list(). Pages mapped into 603VM_LOCKED VMAs but without PG_mlocked set will make it all the way to 604try_to_unmap(). shrink_page_list() will divert them to the unevictable list 605when try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK, as discussed above. 606