unevictable-lru.txt 29 KB

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