1 ==============================
2 UNEVICTABLE LRU INFRASTRUCTURE
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9 (*) The Unevictable LRU
11 - The unevictable page list.
12 - Memory control group interaction.
13 - Marking address spaces unevictable.
14 - Detecting Unevictable Pages.
15 - vmscan's handling of unevictable pages.
21 - mlock()/mlockall() system call handling.
22 - Filtering special vmas.
23 - munlock()/munlockall() system call handling.
24 - Migrating mlocked pages.
25 - mmap(MAP_LOCKED) system call handling.
26 - munmap()/exit()/exec() system call handling.
28 - try_to_munlock() reverse map scan.
29 - Page reclaim in shrink_*_list().
36 This document describes the Linux memory manager's "Unevictable LRU"
37 infrastructure and the use of this to manage several types of "unevictable"
40 The document attempts to provide the overall rationale behind this mechanism
41 and the rationale for some of the design decisions that drove the
42 implementation. The latter design rationale is discussed in the context of an
43 implementation description. Admittedly, one can obtain the implementation
44 details - the "what does it do?" - by reading the code. One hopes that the
45 descriptions below add value by provide the answer to "why does it do that?".
52 The Unevictable LRU facility adds an additional LRU list to track unevictable
53 pages and to hide these pages from vmscan. This mechanism is based on a patch
54 by Larry Woodman of Red Hat to address several scalability problems with page
55 reclaim in Linux. The problems have been observed at customer sites on large
56 memory x86_64 systems.
58 To illustrate this with an example, a non-NUMA x86_64 platform with 128GB of
59 main memory will have over 32 million 4k pages in a single zone. When a large
60 fraction of these pages are not evictable for any reason [see below], vmscan
61 will spend a lot of time scanning the LRU lists looking for the small fraction
62 of pages that are evictable. This can result in a situation where all CPUs are
63 spending 100% of their time in vmscan for hours or days on end, with the system
64 completely unresponsive.
66 The unevictable list addresses the following classes of unevictable pages:
68 (*) Those owned by ramfs.
70 (*) Those mapped into SHM_LOCK'd shared memory regions.
72 (*) Those mapped into VM_LOCKED [mlock()ed] VMAs.
74 The infrastructure may also be able to handle other conditions that make pages
75 unevictable, either by definition or by circumstance, in the future.
78 THE UNEVICTABLE PAGE LIST
79 -------------------------
81 The Unevictable LRU infrastructure consists of an additional, per-zone, LRU list
82 called the "unevictable" list and an associated page flag, PG_unevictable, to
83 indicate that the page is being managed on the unevictable list.
85 The PG_unevictable flag is analogous to, and mutually exclusive with, the
86 PG_active flag in that it indicates on which LRU list a page resides when
89 The Unevictable LRU infrastructure maintains unevictable pages on an additional
90 LRU list for a few reasons:
92 (1) We get to "treat unevictable pages just like we treat other pages in the
93 system - which means we get to use the same code to manipulate them, the
94 same code to isolate them (for migrate, etc.), the same code to keep track
95 of the statistics, etc..." [Rik van Riel]
97 (2) We want to be able to migrate unevictable pages between nodes for memory
98 defragmentation, workload management and memory hotplug. The linux kernel
99 can only migrate pages that it can successfully isolate from the LRU
100 lists. If we were to maintain pages elsewhere than on an LRU-like list,
101 where they can be found by isolate_lru_page(), we would prevent their
102 migration, unless we reworked migration code to find the unevictable pages
106 The unevictable list does not differentiate between file-backed and anonymous,
107 swap-backed pages. This differentiation is only important while the pages are,
110 The unevictable list benefits from the "arrayification" of the per-zone LRU
111 lists and statistics originally proposed and posted by Christoph Lameter.
113 The unevictable list does not use the LRU pagevec mechanism. Rather,
114 unevictable pages are placed directly on the page's zone's unevictable list
115 under the zone lru_lock. This allows us to prevent the stranding of pages on
116 the unevictable list when one task has the page isolated from the LRU and other
117 tasks are changing the "evictability" state of the page.
120 MEMORY CONTROL GROUP INTERACTION
121 --------------------------------
123 The unevictable LRU facility interacts with the memory control group [aka
124 memory controller; see Documentation/cgroups/memory.txt] by extending the
127 The memory controller data structure automatically gets a per-zone unevictable
128 list as a result of the "arrayification" of the per-zone LRU lists (one per
129 lru_list enum element). The memory controller tracks the movement of pages to
130 and from the unevictable list.
132 When a memory control group comes under memory pressure, the controller will
133 not attempt to reclaim pages on the unevictable list. This has a couple of
136 (1) Because the pages are "hidden" from reclaim on the unevictable list, the
137 reclaim process can be more efficient, dealing only with pages that have a
138 chance of being reclaimed.
140 (2) On the other hand, if too many of the pages charged to the control group
141 are unevictable, the evictable portion of the working set of the tasks in
142 the control group may not fit into the available memory. This can cause
143 the control group to thrash or to OOM-kill tasks.
146 MARKING ADDRESS SPACES UNEVICTABLE
147 ----------------------------------
149 For facilities such as ramfs none of the pages attached to the address space
150 may be evicted. To prevent eviction of any such pages, the AS_UNEVICTABLE
151 address space flag is provided, and this can be manipulated by a filesystem
152 using a number of wrapper functions:
154 (*) void mapping_set_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping);
156 Mark the address space as being completely unevictable.
158 (*) void mapping_clear_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping);
160 Mark the address space as being evictable.
162 (*) int mapping_unevictable(struct address_space *mapping);
164 Query the address space, and return true if it is completely
167 These are currently used in two places in the kernel:
169 (1) By ramfs to mark the address spaces of its inodes when they are created,
170 and this mark remains for the life of the inode.
172 (2) By SYSV SHM to mark SHM_LOCK'd address spaces until SHM_UNLOCK is called.
174 Note that SHM_LOCK is not required to page in the locked pages if they're
175 swapped out; the application must touch the pages manually if it wants to
176 ensure they're in memory.
179 DETECTING UNEVICTABLE PAGES
180 ---------------------------
182 The function page_evictable() in vmscan.c determines whether a page is
183 evictable or not using the query function outlined above [see section "Marking
184 address spaces unevictable"] to check the AS_UNEVICTABLE flag.
186 For address spaces that are so marked after being populated (as SHM regions
187 might be), the lock action (eg: SHM_LOCK) can be lazy, and need not populate
188 the page tables for the region as does, for example, mlock(), nor need it make
189 any special effort to push any pages in the SHM_LOCK'd area to the unevictable
190 list. Instead, vmscan will do this if and when it encounters the pages during
193 On an unlock action (such as SHM_UNLOCK), the unlocker (eg: shmctl()) must scan
194 the pages in the region and "rescue" them from the unevictable list if no other
195 condition is keeping them unevictable. If an unevictable region is destroyed,
196 the pages are also "rescued" from the unevictable list in the process of
199 page_evictable() also checks for mlocked pages by testing an additional page
200 flag, PG_mlocked (as wrapped by PageMlocked()), which is set when a page is
201 faulted into a VM_LOCKED vma, or found in a vma being VM_LOCKED.
204 VMSCAN'S HANDLING OF UNEVICTABLE PAGES
205 --------------------------------------
207 If unevictable pages are culled in the fault path, or moved to the unevictable
208 list at mlock() or mmap() time, vmscan will not encounter the pages until they
209 have become evictable again (via munlock() for example) and have been "rescued"
210 from the unevictable list. However, there may be situations where we decide,
211 for the sake of expediency, to leave a unevictable page on one of the regular
212 active/inactive LRU lists for vmscan to deal with. vmscan checks for such
213 pages in all of the shrink_{active|inactive|page}_list() functions and will
214 "cull" such pages that it encounters: that is, it diverts those pages to the
215 unevictable list for the zone being scanned.
217 There may be situations where a page is mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA, but the
218 page is not marked as PG_mlocked. Such pages will make it all the way to
219 shrink_page_list() where they will be detected when vmscan walks the reverse
220 map in try_to_unmap(). If try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK,
221 shrink_page_list() will cull the page at that point.
223 To "cull" an unevictable page, vmscan simply puts the page back on the LRU list
224 using putback_lru_page() - the inverse operation to isolate_lru_page() - after
225 dropping the page lock. Because the condition which makes the page unevictable
226 may change once the page is unlocked, putback_lru_page() will recheck the
227 unevictable state of a page that it places on the unevictable list. If the
228 page has become unevictable, putback_lru_page() removes it from the list and
229 retries, including the page_unevictable() test. Because such a race is a rare
230 event and movement of pages onto the unevictable list should be rare, these
231 extra evictabilty checks should not occur in the majority of calls to
239 The unevictable page list is also useful for mlock(), in addition to ramfs and
240 SYSV SHM. Note that mlock() is only available in CONFIG_MMU=y situations; in
241 NOMMU situations, all mappings are effectively mlocked.
247 The "Unevictable mlocked Pages" infrastructure is based on work originally
248 posted by Nick Piggin in an RFC patch entitled "mm: mlocked pages off LRU".
249 Nick posted his patch as an alternative to a patch posted by Christoph Lameter
250 to achieve the same objective: hiding mlocked pages from vmscan.
252 In Nick's patch, he used one of the struct page LRU list link fields as a count
253 of VM_LOCKED VMAs that map the page. This use of the link field for a count
254 prevented the management of the pages on an LRU list, and thus mlocked pages
255 were not migratable as isolate_lru_page() could not find them, and the LRU list
256 link field was not available to the migration subsystem.
258 Nick resolved this by putting mlocked pages back on the lru list before
259 attempting to isolate them, thus abandoning the count of VM_LOCKED VMAs. When
260 Nick's patch was integrated with the Unevictable LRU work, the count was
261 replaced by walking the reverse map to determine whether any VM_LOCKED VMAs
262 mapped the page. More on this below.
268 mlocked pages - pages mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA - are a class of unevictable
269 pages. When such a page has been "noticed" by the memory management subsystem,
270 the page is marked with the PG_mlocked flag. This can be manipulated using the
271 PageMlocked() functions.
273 A PG_mlocked page will be placed on the unevictable list when it is added to
274 the LRU. Such pages can be "noticed" by memory management in several places:
276 (1) in the mlock()/mlockall() system call handlers;
278 (2) in the mmap() system call handler when mmapping a region with the
281 (3) mmapping a region in a task that has called mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE
284 (4) in the fault path, if mlocked pages are "culled" in the fault path,
285 and when a VM_LOCKED stack segment is expanded; or
287 (5) as mentioned above, in vmscan:shrink_page_list() when attempting to
288 reclaim a page in a VM_LOCKED VMA via try_to_unmap()
290 all of which result in the VM_LOCKED flag being set for the VMA if it doesn't
293 mlocked pages become unlocked and rescued from the unevictable list when:
295 (1) mapped in a range unlocked via the munlock()/munlockall() system calls;
297 (2) munmap()'d out of the last VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the page, including
298 unmapping at task exit;
300 (3) when the page is truncated from the last VM_LOCKED VMA of an mmapped file;
303 (4) before a page is COW'd in a VM_LOCKED VMA.
306 mlock()/mlockall() SYSTEM CALL HANDLING
307 ---------------------------------------
309 Both [do_]mlock() and [do_]mlockall() system call handlers call mlock_fixup()
310 for each VMA in the range specified by the call. In the case of mlockall(),
311 this is the entire active address space of the task. Note that mlock_fixup()
312 is used for both mlocking and munlocking a range of memory. A call to mlock()
313 an already VM_LOCKED VMA, or to munlock() a VMA that is not VM_LOCKED is
314 treated as a no-op, and mlock_fixup() simply returns.
316 If the VMA passes some filtering as described in "Filtering Special Vmas"
317 below, mlock_fixup() will attempt to merge the VMA with its neighbors or split
318 off a subset of the VMA if the range does not cover the entire VMA. Once the
319 VMA has been merged or split or neither, mlock_fixup() will call
320 __mlock_vma_pages_range() to fault in the pages via get_user_pages() and to
321 mark the pages as mlocked via mlock_vma_page().
323 Note that the VMA being mlocked might be mapped with PROT_NONE. In this case,
324 get_user_pages() will be unable to fault in the pages. That's okay. If pages
325 do end up getting faulted into this VM_LOCKED VMA, we'll handle them in the
326 fault path or in vmscan.
328 Also note that a page returned by get_user_pages() could be truncated or
329 migrated out from under us, while we're trying to mlock it. To detect this,
330 __mlock_vma_pages_range() checks page_mapping() after acquiring the page lock.
331 If the page is still associated with its mapping, we'll go ahead and call
332 mlock_vma_page(). If the mapping is gone, we just unlock the page and move on.
333 In the worst case, this will result in a page mapped in a VM_LOCKED VMA
334 remaining on a normal LRU list without being PageMlocked(). Again, vmscan will
335 detect and cull such pages.
337 mlock_vma_page() will call TestSetPageMlocked() for each page returned by
338 get_user_pages(). We use TestSetPageMlocked() because the page might already
339 be mlocked by another task/VMA and we don't want to do extra work. We
340 especially do not want to count an mlocked page more than once in the
341 statistics. If the page was already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() need do nothing
344 If the page was NOT already mlocked, mlock_vma_page() attempts to isolate the
345 page from the LRU, as it is likely on the appropriate active or inactive list
346 at that time. If the isolate_lru_page() succeeds, mlock_vma_page() will put
347 back the page - by calling putback_lru_page() - which will notice that the page
348 is now mlocked and divert the page to the zone's unevictable list. If
349 mlock_vma_page() is unable to isolate the page from the LRU, vmscan will handle
350 it later if and when it attempts to reclaim the page.
353 FILTERING SPECIAL VMAS
354 ----------------------
356 mlock_fixup() filters several classes of "special" VMAs:
358 1) VMAs with VM_IO or VM_PFNMAP set are skipped entirely. The pages behind
359 these mappings are inherently pinned, so we don't need to mark them as
360 mlocked. In any case, most of the pages have no struct page in which to so
361 mark the page. Because of this, get_user_pages() will fail for these VMAs,
362 so there is no sense in attempting to visit them.
364 2) VMAs mapping hugetlbfs page are already effectively pinned into memory. We
365 neither need nor want to mlock() these pages. However, to preserve the
366 prior behavior of mlock() - before the unevictable/mlock changes -
367 mlock_fixup() will call make_pages_present() in the hugetlbfs VMA range to
368 allocate the huge pages and populate the ptes.
370 3) VMAs with VM_DONTEXPAND are generally userspace mappings of kernel pages,
371 such as the VDSO page, relay channel pages, etc. These pages
372 are inherently unevictable and are not managed on the LRU lists.
373 mlock_fixup() treats these VMAs the same as hugetlbfs VMAs. It calls
374 make_pages_present() to populate the ptes.
376 Note that for all of these special VMAs, mlock_fixup() does not set the
377 VM_LOCKED flag. Therefore, we won't have to deal with them later during
378 munlock(), munmap() or task exit. Neither does mlock_fixup() account these
379 VMAs against the task's "locked_vm".
382 munlock()/munlockall() SYSTEM CALL HANDLING
383 -------------------------------------------
385 The munlock() and munlockall() system calls are handled by the same functions -
386 do_mlock[all]() - as the mlock() and mlockall() system calls with the unlock vs
387 lock operation indicated by an argument. So, these system calls are also
388 handled by mlock_fixup(). Again, if called for an already munlocked VMA,
389 mlock_fixup() simply returns. Because of the VMA filtering discussed above,
390 VM_LOCKED will not be set in any "special" VMAs. So, these VMAs will be
393 If the VMA is VM_LOCKED, mlock_fixup() again attempts to merge or split off the
394 specified range. The range is then munlocked via the function
395 __mlock_vma_pages_range() - the same function used to mlock a VMA range -
396 passing a flag to indicate that munlock() is being performed.
398 Because the VMA access protections could have been changed to PROT_NONE after
399 faulting in and mlocking pages, get_user_pages() was unreliable for visiting
400 these pages for munlocking. Because we don't want to leave pages mlocked,
401 get_user_pages() was enhanced to accept a flag to ignore the permissions when
402 fetching the pages - all of which should be resident as a result of previous
405 For munlock(), __mlock_vma_pages_range() unlocks individual pages by calling
406 munlock_vma_page(). munlock_vma_page() unconditionally clears the PG_mlocked
407 flag using TestClearPageMlocked(). As with mlock_vma_page(),
408 munlock_vma_page() use the Test*PageMlocked() function to handle the case where
409 the page might have already been unlocked by another task. If the page was
410 mlocked, munlock_vma_page() updates that zone statistics for the number of
411 mlocked pages. Note, however, that at this point we haven't checked whether
412 the page is mapped by other VM_LOCKED VMAs.
414 We can't call try_to_munlock(), the function that walks the reverse map to
415 check for other VM_LOCKED VMAs, without first isolating the page from the LRU.
416 try_to_munlock() is a variant of try_to_unmap() and thus requires that the page
417 not be on an LRU list [more on these below]. However, the call to
418 isolate_lru_page() could fail, in which case we couldn't try_to_munlock(). So,
419 we go ahead and clear PG_mlocked up front, as this might be the only chance we
420 have. If we can successfully isolate the page, we go ahead and
421 try_to_munlock(), which will restore the PG_mlocked flag and update the zone
422 page statistics if it finds another VMA holding the page mlocked. If we fail
423 to isolate the page, we'll have left a potentially mlocked page on the LRU.
424 This is fine, because we'll catch it later if and if vmscan tries to reclaim
425 the page. This should be relatively rare.
428 MIGRATING MLOCKED PAGES
429 -----------------------
431 A page that is being migrated has been isolated from the LRU lists and is held
432 locked across unmapping of the page, updating the page's address space entry
433 and copying the contents and state, until the page table entry has been
434 replaced with an entry that refers to the new page. Linux supports migration
435 of mlocked pages and other unevictable pages. This involves simply moving the
436 PG_mlocked and PG_unevictable states from the old page to the new page.
438 Note that page migration can race with mlocking or munlocking of the same page.
439 This has been discussed from the mlock/munlock perspective in the respective
440 sections above. Both processes (migration and m[un]locking) hold the page
441 locked. This provides the first level of synchronization. Page migration
442 zeros out the page_mapping of the old page before unlocking it, so m[un]lock
443 can skip these pages by testing the page mapping under page lock.
445 To complete page migration, we place the new and old pages back onto the LRU
446 after dropping the page lock. The "unneeded" page - old page on success, new
447 page on failure - will be freed when the reference count held by the migration
448 process is released. To ensure that we don't strand pages on the unevictable
449 list because of a race between munlock and migration, page migration uses the
450 putback_lru_page() function to add migrated pages back to the LRU.
453 mmap(MAP_LOCKED) SYSTEM CALL HANDLING
454 -------------------------------------
456 In addition the mlock()/mlockall() system calls, an application can request
457 that a region of memory be mlocked supplying the MAP_LOCKED flag to the mmap()
458 call. Furthermore, any mmap() call or brk() call that expands the heap by a
459 task that has previously called mlockall() with the MCL_FUTURE flag will result
460 in the newly mapped memory being mlocked. Before the unevictable/mlock
461 changes, the kernel simply called make_pages_present() to allocate pages and
462 populate the page table.
464 To mlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the
465 mmap() handler and task address space expansion functions call
466 mlock_vma_pages_range() specifying the vma and the address range to mlock.
467 mlock_vma_pages_range() filters VMAs like mlock_fixup(), as described above in
468 "Filtering Special VMAs". It will clear the VM_LOCKED flag, which will have
469 already been set by the caller, in filtered VMAs. Thus these VMA's need not be
470 visited for munlock when the region is unmapped.
472 For "normal" VMAs, mlock_vma_pages_range() calls __mlock_vma_pages_range() to
473 fault/allocate the pages and mlock them. Again, like mlock_fixup(),
474 mlock_vma_pages_range() downgrades the mmap semaphore to read mode before
475 attempting to fault/allocate and mlock the pages and "upgrades" the semaphore
476 back to write mode before returning.
478 The callers of mlock_vma_pages_range() will have already added the memory range
479 to be mlocked to the task's "locked_vm". To account for filtered VMAs,
480 mlock_vma_pages_range() returns the number of pages NOT mlocked. All of the
481 callers then subtract a non-negative return value from the task's locked_vm. A
482 negative return value represent an error - for example, from get_user_pages()
483 attempting to fault in a VMA with PROT_NONE access. In this case, we leave the
484 memory range accounted as locked_vm, as the protections could be changed later
485 and pages allocated into that region.
488 munmap()/exit()/exec() SYSTEM CALL HANDLING
489 -------------------------------------------
491 When unmapping an mlocked region of memory, whether by an explicit call to
492 munmap() or via an internal unmap from exit() or exec() processing, we must
493 munlock the pages if we're removing the last VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the pages.
494 Before the unevictable/mlock changes, mlocking did not mark the pages in any
495 way, so unmapping them required no processing.
497 To munlock a range of memory under the unevictable/mlock infrastructure, the
498 munmap() handler and task address space call tear down function
499 munlock_vma_pages_all(). The name reflects the observation that one always
500 specifies the entire VMA range when munlock()ing during unmap of a region.
501 Because of the VMA filtering when mlocking() regions, only "normal" VMAs that
502 actually contain mlocked pages will be passed to munlock_vma_pages_all().
504 munlock_vma_pages_all() clears the VM_LOCKED VMA flag and, like mlock_fixup()
505 for the munlock case, calls __munlock_vma_pages_range() to walk the page table
506 for the VMA's memory range and munlock_vma_page() each resident page mapped by
507 the VMA. This effectively munlocks the page, only if this is the last
508 VM_LOCKED VMA that maps the page.
514 Pages can, of course, be mapped into multiple VMAs. Some of these VMAs may
515 have VM_LOCKED flag set. It is possible for a page mapped into one or more
516 VM_LOCKED VMAs not to have the PG_mlocked flag set and therefore reside on one
517 of the active or inactive LRU lists. This could happen if, for example, a task
518 in the process of munlocking the page could not isolate the page from the LRU.
519 As a result, vmscan/shrink_page_list() might encounter such a page as described
520 in section "vmscan's handling of unevictable pages". To handle this situation,
521 try_to_unmap() checks for VM_LOCKED VMAs while it is walking a page's reverse
524 try_to_unmap() is always called, by either vmscan for reclaim or for page
525 migration, with the argument page locked and isolated from the LRU. Separate
526 functions handle anonymous and mapped file pages, as these types of pages have
527 different reverse map mechanisms.
529 (*) try_to_unmap_anon()
531 To unmap anonymous pages, each VMA in the list anchored in the anon_vma
532 must be visited - at least until a VM_LOCKED VMA is encountered. If the
533 page is being unmapped for migration, VM_LOCKED VMAs do not stop the
534 process because mlocked pages are migratable. However, for reclaim, if
535 the page is mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA, the scan stops.
537 try_to_unmap_anon() attempts to acquire in read mode the mmap semaphore of
538 the mm_struct to which the VMA belongs. If this is successful, it will
539 mlock the page via mlock_vma_page() - we wouldn't have gotten to
540 try_to_unmap_anon() if the page were already mlocked - and will return
541 SWAP_MLOCK, indicating that the page is unevictable.
543 If the mmap semaphore cannot be acquired, we are not sure whether the page
544 is really unevictable or not. In this case, try_to_unmap_anon() will
547 (*) try_to_unmap_file() - linear mappings
549 Unmapping of a mapped file page works the same as for anonymous mappings,
550 except that the scan visits all VMAs that map the page's index/page offset
551 in the page's mapping's reverse map priority search tree. It also visits
552 each VMA in the page's mapping's non-linear list, if the list is
555 As for anonymous pages, on encountering a VM_LOCKED VMA for a mapped file
556 page, try_to_unmap_file() will attempt to acquire the associated
557 mm_struct's mmap semaphore to mlock the page, returning SWAP_MLOCK if this
558 is successful, and SWAP_AGAIN, if not.
560 (*) try_to_unmap_file() - non-linear mappings
562 If a page's mapping contains a non-empty non-linear mapping VMA list, then
563 try_to_un{map|lock}() must also visit each VMA in that list to determine
564 whether the page is mapped in a VM_LOCKED VMA. Again, the scan must visit
565 all VMAs in the non-linear list to ensure that the pages is not/should not
568 If a VM_LOCKED VMA is found in the list, the scan could terminate.
569 However, there is no easy way to determine whether the page is actually
570 mapped in a given VMA - either for unmapping or testing whether the
571 VM_LOCKED VMA actually pins the page.
573 try_to_unmap_file() handles non-linear mappings by scanning a certain
574 number of pages - a "cluster" - in each non-linear VMA associated with the
575 page's mapping, for each file mapped page that vmscan tries to unmap. If
576 this happens to unmap the page we're trying to unmap, try_to_unmap() will
577 notice this on return (page_mapcount(page) will be 0) and return
578 SWAP_SUCCESS. Otherwise, it will return SWAP_AGAIN, causing vmscan to
579 recirculate this page. We take advantage of the cluster scan in
580 try_to_unmap_cluster() as follows:
582 For each non-linear VMA, try_to_unmap_cluster() attempts to acquire the
583 mmap semaphore of the associated mm_struct for read without blocking.
585 If this attempt is successful and the VMA is VM_LOCKED,
586 try_to_unmap_cluster() will retain the mmap semaphore for the scan;
587 otherwise it drops it here.
589 Then, for each page in the cluster, if we're holding the mmap semaphore
590 for a locked VMA, try_to_unmap_cluster() calls mlock_vma_page() to
591 mlock the page. This call is a no-op if the page is already locked,
592 but will mlock any pages in the non-linear mapping that happen to be
595 If one of the pages so mlocked is the page passed in to try_to_unmap(),
596 try_to_unmap_cluster() will return SWAP_MLOCK, rather than the default
597 SWAP_AGAIN. This will allow vmscan to cull the page, rather than
598 recirculating it on the inactive list.
600 Again, if try_to_unmap_cluster() cannot acquire the VMA's mmap sem, it
601 returns SWAP_AGAIN, indicating that the page is mapped by a VM_LOCKED
602 VMA, but couldn't be mlocked.
605 try_to_munlock() REVERSE MAP SCAN
606 ---------------------------------
608 [!] TODO/FIXME: a better name might be page_mlocked() - analogous to the
609 page_referenced() reverse map walker.
611 When munlock_vma_page() [see section "munlock()/munlockall() System Call
612 Handling" above] tries to munlock a page, it needs to determine whether or not
613 the page is mapped by any VM_LOCKED VMA without actually attempting to unmap
614 all PTEs from the page. For this purpose, the unevictable/mlock infrastructure
615 introduced a variant of try_to_unmap() called try_to_munlock().
617 try_to_munlock() calls the same functions as try_to_unmap() for anonymous and
618 mapped file pages with an additional argument specifying unlock versus unmap
619 processing. Again, these functions walk the respective reverse maps looking
620 for VM_LOCKED VMAs. When such a VMA is found for anonymous pages and file
621 pages mapped in linear VMAs, as in the try_to_unmap() case, the functions
622 attempt to acquire the associated mmap semaphore, mlock the page via
623 mlock_vma_page() and return SWAP_MLOCK. This effectively undoes the
624 pre-clearing of the page's PG_mlocked done by munlock_vma_page.
626 If try_to_unmap() is unable to acquire a VM_LOCKED VMA's associated mmap
627 semaphore, it will return SWAP_AGAIN. This will allow shrink_page_list() to
628 recycle the page on the inactive list and hope that it has better luck with the
631 For file pages mapped into non-linear VMAs, the try_to_munlock() logic works
632 slightly differently. On encountering a VM_LOCKED non-linear VMA that might
633 map the page, try_to_munlock() returns SWAP_AGAIN without actually mlocking the
634 page. munlock_vma_page() will just leave the page unlocked and let vmscan deal
635 with it - the usual fallback position.
637 Note that try_to_munlock()'s reverse map walk must visit every VMA in a page's
638 reverse map to determine that a page is NOT mapped into any VM_LOCKED VMA.
639 However, the scan can terminate when it encounters a VM_LOCKED VMA and can
640 successfully acquire the VMA's mmap semaphore for read and mlock the page.
641 Although try_to_munlock() might be called a great many times when munlocking a
642 large region or tearing down a large address space that has been mlocked via
643 mlockall(), overall this is a fairly rare event.
646 PAGE RECLAIM IN shrink_*_list()
647 -------------------------------
649 shrink_active_list() culls any obviously unevictable pages - i.e.
650 !page_evictable(page) - diverting these to the unevictable list.
651 However, shrink_active_list() only sees unevictable pages that made it onto the
652 active/inactive lru lists. Note that these pages do not have PageUnevictable
653 set - otherwise they would be on the unevictable list and shrink_active_list
654 would never see them.
656 Some examples of these unevictable pages on the LRU lists are:
658 (1) ramfs pages that have been placed on the LRU lists when first allocated.
660 (2) SHM_LOCK'd shared memory pages. shmctl(SHM_LOCK) does not attempt to
661 allocate or fault in the pages in the shared memory region. This happens
662 when an application accesses the page the first time after SHM_LOCK'ing
665 (3) mlocked pages that could not be isolated from the LRU and moved to the
666 unevictable list in mlock_vma_page().
668 (4) Pages mapped into multiple VM_LOCKED VMAs, but try_to_munlock() couldn't
669 acquire the VMA's mmap semaphore to test the flags and set PageMlocked.
670 munlock_vma_page() was forced to let the page back on to the normal LRU
671 list for vmscan to handle.
673 shrink_inactive_list() also diverts any unevictable pages that it finds on the
674 inactive lists to the appropriate zone's unevictable list.
676 shrink_inactive_list() should only see SHM_LOCK'd pages that became SHM_LOCK'd
677 after shrink_active_list() had moved them to the inactive list, or pages mapped
678 into VM_LOCKED VMAs that munlock_vma_page() couldn't isolate from the LRU to
679 recheck via try_to_munlock(). shrink_inactive_list() won't notice the latter,
680 but will pass on to shrink_page_list().
682 shrink_page_list() again culls obviously unevictable pages that it could
683 encounter for similar reason to shrink_inactive_list(). Pages mapped into
684 VM_LOCKED VMAs but without PG_mlocked set will make it all the way to
685 try_to_unmap(). shrink_page_list() will divert them to the unevictable list
686 when try_to_unmap() returns SWAP_MLOCK, as discussed above.