3 ==============================
4 Unevictable LRU Infrastructure
5 ==============================
13 This document describes the Linux memory manager's "Unevictable LRU"
14 infrastructure and the use of this to manage several types of "unevictable"
17 The document attempts to provide the overall rationale behind this mechanism
18 and the rationale for some of the design decisions that drove the
19 implementation. The latter design rationale is discussed in the context of an
20 implementation description. Admittedly, one can obtain the implementation
21 details - the "what does it do?" - by reading the code. One hopes that the
22 descriptions below add value by provide the answer to "why does it do that?".
29 The Unevictable LRU facility adds an additional LRU list to track unevictable
30 pages and to hide these pages from vmscan. This mechanism is based on a patch
31 by Larry Woodman of Red Hat to address several scalability problems with page
32 reclaim in Linux. The problems have been observed at customer sites on large
33 memory x86_64 systems.
35 To illustrate this with an example, a non-NUMA x86_64 platform with 128GB of
36 main memory will have over 32 million 4k pages in a single node. When a large
37 fraction of these pages are not evictable for any reason [see below], vmscan
38 will spend a lot of time scanning the LRU lists looking for the small fraction
39 of pages that are evictable. This can result in a situation where all CPUs are
40 spending 100% of their time in vmscan for hours or days on end, with the system
41 completely unresponsive.
43 The unevictable list addresses the following classes of unevictable pages:
45 * Those owned by ramfs.
47 * Those mapped into SHM_LOCK'd shared memory regions.
49 * Those mapped into VM_LOCKED [mlock()ed] VMAs.
51 The infrastructure may also be able to handle other conditions that make pages
52 unevictable, either by definition or by circumstance, in the future.
55 The Unevictable Page List
56 -------------------------
58 The Unevictable LRU infrastructure consists of an additional, per-node, LRU list
59 called the "unevictable" list and an associated page flag, PG_unevictable, to
60 indicate that the page is being managed on the unevictable list.
62 The PG_unevictable flag is analogous to, and mutually exclusive with, the
63 PG_active flag in that it indicates on which LRU list a page resides when
66 The Unevictable LRU infrastructure maintains unevictable pages on an additional
67 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]
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
83 The unevictable list does not differentiate between file-backed and anonymous,
84 swap-backed pages. This differentiation is only important while the pages are,
87 The unevictable list benefits from the "arrayification" of the per-node LRU
88 lists and statistics originally proposed and posted by Christoph Lameter.
91 Memory Control Group Interaction
92 --------------------------------
94 The unevictable LRU facility interacts with the memory control group [aka
95 memory controller; see Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v1/memory.rst] by extending the
98 The memory controller data structure automatically gets a per-node unevictable
99 list as a result of the "arrayification" of the per-node LRU lists (one per
100 lru_list enum element). The memory controller tracks the movement of pages to
101 and from the unevictable list.
103 When a memory control group comes under memory pressure, the controller will
104 not attempt to reclaim pages on the unevictable list. This has a couple of
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.
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.
117 .. _mark_addr_space_unevict:
119 Marking Address Spaces Unevictable
120 ----------------------------------
122 For facilities such as ramfs none of the pages attached to the address space
123 may be evicted. To prevent eviction of any such pages, the AS_UNEVICTABLE
124 address space flag is provided, and this can be manipulated by a filesystem
125 using a number of wrapper functions:
127 * ``void mapping_set_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping);``
129 Mark the address space as being completely unevictable.
131 * ``void mapping_clear_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping);``
133 Mark the address space as being evictable.
135 * ``int mapping_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping);``
137 Query the address space, and return true if it is completely
140 These are currently used in three places in the kernel:
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.
145 (2) By SYSV SHM to mark SHM_LOCK'd address spaces until SHM_UNLOCK is called.
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.
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.
156 Detecting Unevictable Pages
157 ---------------------------
159 The function page_evictable() in vmscan.c determines whether a page is
160 evictable or not using the query function outlined above [see section
161 :ref:`Marking address spaces unevictable <mark_addr_space_unevict>`]
162 to check the AS_UNEVICTABLE flag.
164 For address spaces that are so marked after being populated (as SHM regions
165 might be), the lock action (eg: SHM_LOCK) can be lazy, and need not populate
166 the page tables for the region as does, for example, mlock(), nor need it make
167 any special effort to push any pages in the SHM_LOCK'd area to the unevictable
168 list. Instead, vmscan will do this if and when it encounters the pages during
171 On an unlock action (such as SHM_UNLOCK), the unlocker (eg: shmctl()) must scan
172 the pages in the region and "rescue" them from the unevictable list if no other
173 condition is keeping them unevictable. If an unevictable region is destroyed,
174 the pages are also "rescued" from the unevictable list in the process of
177 page_evictable() also checks for mlocked pages by testing an additional page
178 flag, PG_mlocked (as wrapped by PageMlocked()), which is set when a page is
179 faulted into a VM_LOCKED vma, or found in a vma being VM_LOCKED.
182 Vmscan's Handling of Unevictable Pages
183 --------------------------------------
185 If unevictable pages are culled in the fault path, or moved to the unevictable
186 list at mlock() or mmap() time, vmscan will not encounter the pages until they
187 have become evictable again (via munlock() for example) and have been "rescued"
188 from the unevictable list. However, there may be situations where we decide,
189 for the sake of expediency, to leave a unevictable page on one of the regular
190 active/inactive LRU lists for vmscan to deal with. vmscan checks for such
191 pages 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
193 unevictable list for the node being scanned.
195 There may be situations where a page is mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA, but the
196 page is not marked as PG_mlocked. Such pages will make it all the way to
197 shrink_page_list() where they will be detected when vmscan walks the reverse
198 map in try_to_unmap(). If try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK,
199 shrink_page_list() will cull the page at that point.
201 To "cull" an unevictable page, vmscan simply puts the page back on the LRU list
202 using putback_lru_page() - the inverse operation to isolate_lru_page() - after
203 dropping the page lock. Because the condition which makes the page unevictable
204 may change once the page is unlocked, putback_lru_page() will recheck the
205 unevictable state of a page that it places on the unevictable list. If the
206 page has become unevictable, putback_lru_page() removes it from the list and
207 retries, including the page_unevictable() test. Because such a race is a rare
208 event and movement of pages onto the unevictable list should be rare, these
209 extra evictabilty checks should not occur in the majority of calls to
216 The unevictable page list is also useful for mlock(), in addition to ramfs and
217 SYSV SHM. Note that mlock() is only available in CONFIG_MMU=y situations; in
218 NOMMU situations, all mappings are effectively mlocked.
224 The "Unevictable mlocked Pages" infrastructure is based on work originally
225 posted by Nick Piggin in an RFC patch entitled "mm: mlocked pages off LRU".
226 Nick posted his patch as an alternative to a patch posted by Christoph Lameter
227 to achieve the same objective: hiding mlocked pages from vmscan.
229 In Nick's patch, he used one of the struct page LRU list link fields as a count
230 of VM_LOCKED VMAs that map the page. This use of the link field for a count
231 prevented the management of the pages on an LRU list, and thus mlocked pages
232 were not migratable as isolate_lru_page() could not find them, and the LRU list
233 link field was not available to the migration subsystem.
235 Nick resolved this by putting mlocked pages back on the lru list before
236 attempting to isolate them, thus abandoning the count of VM_LOCKED VMAs. When
237 Nick's patch was integrated with the Unevictable LRU work, the count was
238 replaced by walking the reverse map to determine whether any VM_LOCKED VMAs
239 mapped the page. More on this below.
245 mlocked pages - pages mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA - are a class of unevictable
246 pages. When such a page has been "noticed" by the memory management subsystem,
247 the page is marked with the PG_mlocked flag. This can be manipulated using the
248 PageMlocked() functions.
250 A PG_mlocked page will be placed on the unevictable list when it is added to
251 the LRU. Such pages can be "noticed" by memory management in several places:
253 (1) in the mlock()/mlockall() system call handlers;
255 (2) in the mmap() system call handler when mmapping a region with the
258 (3) mmapping a region in a task that has called mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE
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
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()
267 all of which result in the VM_LOCKED flag being set for the VMA if it doesn't
270 mlocked pages become unlocked and rescued from the unevictable list when:
272 (1) mapped in a range unlocked via the munlock()/munlockall() system calls;
274 (2) munmap()'d out of the last VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the page, including
275 unmapping at task exit;
277 (3) when the page is truncated from the last VM_LOCKED VMA of an mmapped file;
280 (4) before a page is COW'd in a VM_LOCKED VMA.
283 mlock()/mlockall() System Call Handling
284 ---------------------------------------
286 Both [do\_]mlock() and [do\_]mlockall() system call handlers call mlock_fixup()
287 for each VMA in the range specified by the call. In the case of mlockall(),
288 this is the entire active address space of the task. Note that mlock_fixup()
289 is used for both mlocking and munlocking a range of memory. A call to mlock()
290 an already VM_LOCKED VMA, or to munlock() a VMA that is not VM_LOCKED is
291 treated as a no-op, and mlock_fixup() simply returns.
293 If the VMA passes some filtering as described in "Filtering Special Vmas"
294 below, mlock_fixup() will attempt to merge the VMA with its neighbors or split
295 off a subset of the VMA if the range does not cover the entire VMA. Once the
296 VMA has been merged or split or neither, mlock_fixup() will call
297 populate_vma_page_range() to fault in the pages via get_user_pages() and to
298 mark the pages as mlocked via mlock_vma_page().
300 Note that the VMA being mlocked might be mapped with PROT_NONE. In this case,
301 get_user_pages() will be unable to fault in the pages. That's okay. If pages
302 do end up getting faulted into this VM_LOCKED VMA, we'll handle them in the
303 fault path or in vmscan.
305 Also note that a page returned by get_user_pages() could be truncated or
306 migrated out from under us, while we're trying to mlock it. To detect this,
307 populate_vma_page_range() checks page_mapping() after acquiring the page lock.
308 If the page is still associated with its mapping, we'll go ahead and call
309 mlock_vma_page(). If the mapping is gone, we just unlock the page and move on.
310 In the worst case, this will result in a page mapped in a VM_LOCKED VMA
311 remaining on a normal LRU list without being PageMlocked(). Again, vmscan will
312 detect and cull such pages.
314 mlock_vma_page() will call TestSetPageMlocked() for each page returned by
315 get_user_pages(). We use TestSetPageMlocked() because the page might already
316 be mlocked by another task/VMA and we don't want to do extra work. We
317 especially do not want to count an mlocked page more than once in the
318 statistics. If the page was already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() need do nothing
321 If the page was NOT already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() attempts to isolate the
322 page from the LRU, as it is likely on the appropriate active or inactive list
323 at that time. If the isolate_lru_page() succeeds, mlock_vma_page() will put
324 back the page - by calling putback_lru_page() - which will notice that the page
325 is now mlocked and divert the page to the node's unevictable list. If
326 mlock_vma_page() is unable to isolate the page from the LRU, vmscan will handle
327 it later if and when it attempts to reclaim the page.
330 Filtering Special VMAs
331 ----------------------
333 mlock_fixup() filters several classes of "special" VMAs:
335 1) 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.
341 2) 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.
347 3) 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.
353 Note that for all of these special VMAs, mlock_fixup() does not set the
354 VM_LOCKED flag. Therefore, we won't have to deal with them later during
355 munlock(), munmap() or task exit. Neither does mlock_fixup() account these
356 VMAs against the task's "locked_vm".
358 .. _munlock_munlockall_handling:
360 munlock()/munlockall() System Call Handling
361 -------------------------------------------
363 The munlock() and munlockall() system calls are handled by the same functions -
364 do_mlock[all]() - as the mlock() and mlockall() system calls with the unlock vs
365 lock operation indicated by an argument. So, these system calls are also
366 handled by mlock_fixup(). Again, if called for an already munlocked VMA,
367 mlock_fixup() simply returns. Because of the VMA filtering discussed above,
368 VM_LOCKED will not be set in any "special" VMAs. So, these VMAs will be
371 If the VMA is VM_LOCKED, mlock_fixup() again attempts to merge or split off the
372 specified range. The range is then munlocked via the function
373 populate_vma_page_range() - the same function used to mlock a VMA range -
374 passing a flag to indicate that munlock() is being performed.
376 Because the VMA access protections could have been changed to PROT_NONE after
377 faulting in and mlocking pages, get_user_pages() was unreliable for visiting
378 these pages for munlocking. Because we don't want to leave pages mlocked,
379 get_user_pages() was enhanced to accept a flag to ignore the permissions when
380 fetching the pages - all of which should be resident as a result of previous
383 For munlock(), populate_vma_page_range() unlocks individual pages by calling
384 munlock_vma_page(). munlock_vma_page() unconditionally clears the PG_mlocked
385 flag using TestClearPageMlocked(). As with mlock_vma_page(),
386 munlock_vma_page() use the Test*PageMlocked() function to handle the case where
387 the page might have already been unlocked by another task. If the page was
388 mlocked, munlock_vma_page() updates that zone statistics for the number of
389 mlocked pages. Note, however, that at this point we haven't checked whether
390 the page is mapped by other VM_LOCKED VMAs.
392 We can't call try_to_munlock(), the function that walks the reverse map to
393 check for other VM_LOCKED VMAs, without first isolating the page from the LRU.
394 try_to_munlock() is a variant of try_to_unmap() and thus requires that the page
395 not be on an LRU list [more on these below]. However, the call to
396 isolate_lru_page() could fail, in which case we couldn't try_to_munlock(). So,
397 we go ahead and clear PG_mlocked up front, as this might be the only chance we
398 have. If we can successfully isolate the page, we go ahead and
399 try_to_munlock(), which will restore the PG_mlocked flag and update the zone
400 page statistics if it finds another VMA holding the page mlocked. If we fail
401 to isolate the page, we'll have left a potentially mlocked page on the LRU.
402 This is fine, because we'll catch it later if and if vmscan tries to reclaim
403 the page. This should be relatively rare.
406 Migrating MLOCKED Pages
407 -----------------------
409 A page that is being migrated has been isolated from the LRU lists and is held
410 locked across unmapping of the page, updating the page's address space entry
411 and copying the contents and state, until the page table entry has been
412 replaced with an entry that refers to the new page. Linux supports migration
413 of mlocked pages and other unevictable pages. This involves simply moving the
414 PG_mlocked and PG_unevictable states from the old page to the new page.
416 Note that page migration can race with mlocking or munlocking of the same page.
417 This has been discussed from the mlock/munlock perspective in the respective
418 sections above. Both processes (migration and m[un]locking) hold the page
419 locked. This provides the first level of synchronization. Page migration
420 zeros out the page_mapping of the old page before unlocking it, so m[un]lock
421 can skip these pages by testing the page mapping under page lock.
423 To complete page migration, we place the new and old pages back onto the LRU
424 after dropping the page lock. The "unneeded" page - old page on success, new
425 page on failure - will be freed when the reference count held by the migration
426 process is released. To ensure that we don't strand pages on the unevictable
427 list because of a race between munlock and migration, page migration uses the
428 putback_lru_page() function to add migrated pages back to the LRU.
431 Compacting MLOCKED Pages
432 ------------------------
434 The unevictable LRU can be scanned for compactable regions and the default
435 behavior is to do so. /proc/sys/vm/compact_unevictable_allowed controls
436 this behavior (see Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst). Once scanning of the
437 unevictable LRU is enabled, the work of compaction is mostly handled by
438 the page migration code and the same work flow as described in MIGRATING
439 MLOCKED PAGES will apply.
441 MLOCKING Transparent Huge Pages
442 -------------------------------
444 A transparent huge page is represented by a single entry on an LRU list.
445 Therefore, we can only make unevictable an entire compound page, not
448 If a user tries to mlock() part of a huge page, we want the rest of the
449 page to be reclaimable.
451 We cannot just split the page on partial mlock() as split_huge_page() can
452 fail and new intermittent failure mode for the syscall is undesirable.
454 We handle this by keeping PTE-mapped huge pages on normal LRU lists: the
455 PMD on border of VM_LOCKED VMA will be split into PTE table.
457 This way the huge page is accessible for vmscan. Under memory pressure the
458 page will be split, subpages which belong to VM_LOCKED VMAs will be moved
459 to unevictable LRU and the rest can be reclaimed.
461 See also comment in follow_trans_huge_pmd().
463 mmap(MAP_LOCKED) System Call Handling
464 -------------------------------------
466 In addition the mlock()/mlockall() system calls, an application can request
467 that a region of memory be mlocked supplying the MAP_LOCKED flag to the mmap()
468 call. There is one important and subtle difference here, though. mmap() + mlock()
469 will fail if the range cannot be faulted in (e.g. because mm_populate fails)
470 and returns with ENOMEM while mmap(MAP_LOCKED) will not fail. The mmaped
471 area will still have properties of the locked area - aka. pages will not get
472 swapped out - but major page faults to fault memory in might still happen.
474 Furthermore, any mmap() call or brk() call that expands the heap by a
475 task that has previously called mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE flag will result
476 in the newly mapped memory being mlocked. Before the unevictable/mlock
477 changes, the kernel simply called make_pages_present() to allocate pages and
478 populate the page table.
480 To mlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the
481 mmap() handler and task address space expansion functions call
482 populate_vma_page_range() specifying the vma and the address range to mlock.
484 The callers of populate_vma_page_range() will have already added the memory range
485 to be mlocked to the task's "locked_vm". To account for filtered VMAs,
486 populate_vma_page_range() returns the number of pages NOT mlocked. All of the
487 callers then subtract a non-negative return value from the task's locked_vm. A
488 negative return value represent an error - for example, from get_user_pages()
489 attempting to fault in a VMA with PROT_NONE access. In this case, we leave the
490 memory range accounted as locked_vm, as the protections could be changed later
491 and pages allocated into that region.
494 munmap()/exit()/exec() System Call Handling
495 -------------------------------------------
497 When unmapping an mlocked region of memory, whether by an explicit call to
498 munmap() or via an internal unmap from exit() or exec() processing, we must
499 munlock the pages if we're removing the last VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the pages.
500 Before the unevictable/mlock changes, mlocking did not mark the pages in any
501 way, so unmapping them required no processing.
503 To munlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the
504 munmap() handler and task address space call tear down function
505 munlock_vma_pages_all(). The name reflects the observation that one always
506 specifies the entire VMA range when munlock()ing during unmap of a region.
507 Because of the VMA filtering when mlocking() regions, only "normal" VMAs that
508 actually contain mlocked pages will be passed to munlock_vma_pages_all().
510 munlock_vma_pages_all() clears the VM_LOCKED VMA flag and, like mlock_fixup()
511 for the munlock case, calls __munlock_vma_pages_range() to walk the page table
512 for the VMA's memory range and munlock_vma_page() each resident page mapped by
513 the VMA. This effectively munlocks the page, only if this is the last
514 VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the page.
520 Pages can, of course, be mapped into multiple VMAs. Some of these VMAs may
521 have VM_LOCKED flag set. It is possible for a page mapped into one or more
522 VM_LOCKED VMAs not to have the PG_mlocked flag set and therefore reside on one
523 of the active or inactive LRU lists. This could happen if, for example, a task
524 in the process of munlocking the page could not isolate the page from the LRU.
525 As a result, vmscan/shrink_page_list() might encounter such a page as described
526 in section "vmscan's handling of unevictable pages". To handle this situation,
527 try_to_unmap() checks for VM_LOCKED VMAs while it is walking a page's reverse
530 try_to_unmap() is always called, by either vmscan for reclaim or for page
531 migration, with the argument page locked and isolated from the LRU. Separate
532 functions handle anonymous and mapped file and KSM pages, as these types of
533 pages have different reverse map lookup mechanisms, with different locking.
534 In each case, whether rmap_walk_anon() or rmap_walk_file() or rmap_walk_ksm(),
535 it will call try_to_unmap_one() for every VMA which might contain the page.
537 When trying to reclaim, if try_to_unmap_one() finds the page in a VM_LOCKED
538 VMA, it will then mlock the page via mlock_vma_page() instead of unmapping it,
539 and return SWAP_MLOCK to indicate that the page is unevictable: and the scan
542 mlock_vma_page() is called while holding the page table's lock (in addition
543 to the page lock, and the rmap lock): to serialize against concurrent mlock or
544 munlock or munmap system calls, mm teardown (munlock_vma_pages_all), reclaim,
545 holepunching, and truncation of file pages and their anonymous COWed pages.
548 try_to_munlock() Reverse Map Scan
549 ---------------------------------
552 [!] TODO/FIXME: a better name might be page_mlocked() - analogous to the
553 page_referenced() reverse map walker.
555 When munlock_vma_page() [see section :ref:`munlock()/munlockall() System Call
556 Handling <munlock_munlockall_handling>` above] tries to munlock a
557 page, it needs to determine whether or not the page is mapped by any
558 VM_LOCKED VMA without actually attempting to unmap all PTEs from the
559 page. For this purpose, the unevictable/mlock infrastructure
560 introduced a variant of try_to_unmap() called try_to_munlock().
562 try_to_munlock() calls the same functions as try_to_unmap() for anonymous and
563 mapped file and KSM pages with a flag argument specifying unlock versus unmap
564 processing. Again, these functions walk the respective reverse maps looking
565 for VM_LOCKED VMAs. When such a VMA is found, as in the try_to_unmap() case,
566 the functions mlock the page via mlock_vma_page() and return SWAP_MLOCK. This
567 undoes the pre-clearing of the page's PG_mlocked done by munlock_vma_page.
569 Note that try_to_munlock()'s reverse map walk must visit every VMA in a page's
570 reverse map to determine that a page is NOT mapped into any VM_LOCKED VMA.
571 However, the scan can terminate when it encounters a VM_LOCKED VMA.
572 Although try_to_munlock() might be called a great many times when munlocking a
573 large region or tearing down a large address space that has been mlocked via
574 mlockall(), overall this is a fairly rare event.
577 Page Reclaim in shrink_*_list()
578 -------------------------------
580 shrink_active_list() culls any obviously unevictable pages - i.e.
581 !page_evictable(page) - diverting these to the unevictable list.
582 However, shrink_active_list() only sees unevictable pages that made it onto the
583 active/inactive lru lists. Note that these pages do not have PageUnevictable
584 set - otherwise they would be on the unevictable list and shrink_active_list
585 would never see them.
587 Some examples of these unevictable pages on the LRU lists are:
589 (1) ramfs pages that have been placed on the LRU lists when first allocated.
591 (2) SHM_LOCK'd shared memory pages. shmctl(SHM_LOCK) does not attempt to
592 allocate or fault in the pages in the shared memory region. This happens
593 when an application accesses the page the first time after SHM_LOCK'ing
596 (3) mlocked pages that could not be isolated from the LRU and moved to the
597 unevictable list in mlock_vma_page().
599 shrink_inactive_list() also diverts any unevictable pages that it finds on the
600 inactive lists to the appropriate node's unevictable list.
602 shrink_inactive_list() should only see SHM_LOCK'd pages that became SHM_LOCK'd
603 after shrink_active_list() had moved them to the inactive list, or pages mapped
604 into VM_LOCKED VMAs that munlock_vma_page() couldn't isolate from the LRU to
605 recheck via try_to_munlock(). shrink_inactive_list() won't notice the latter,
606 but will pass on to shrink_page_list().
608 shrink_page_list() again culls obviously unevictable pages that it could
609 encounter for similar reason to shrink_inactive_list(). Pages mapped into
610 VM_LOCKED VMAs but without PG_mlocked set will make it all the way to
611 try_to_unmap(). shrink_page_list() will divert them to the unevictable list
612 when try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK, as discussed above.