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diff --git a/Documentation/vm/active_mm.rst b/Documentation/vm/active_mm.rst deleted file mode 100644 index 6f8269c284ed..000000000000 --- a/Documentation/vm/active_mm.rst +++ /dev/null @@ -1,91 +0,0 @@ -.. _active_mm: - -========= -Active MM -========= - -:: - - List: linux-kernel - Subject: Re: active_mm - From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds () transmeta ! com> - Date: 1999-07-30 21:36:24 - - Cc'd to linux-kernel, because I don't write explanations all that often, - and when I do I feel better about more people reading them. - - On Fri, 30 Jul 1999, David Mosberger wrote: - > - > Is there a brief description someplace on how "mm" vs. "active_mm" in - > the task_struct are supposed to be used? (My apologies if this was - > discussed on the mailing lists---I just returned from vacation and - > wasn't able to follow linux-kernel for a while). - - Basically, the new setup is: - - - we have "real address spaces" and "anonymous address spaces". The - difference is that an anonymous address space doesn't care about the - user-level page tables at all, so when we do a context switch into an - anonymous address space we just leave the previous address space - active. - - The obvious use for a "anonymous address space" is any thread that - doesn't need any user mappings - all kernel threads basically fall into - this category, but even "real" threads can temporarily say that for - some amount of time they are not going to be interested in user space, - and that the scheduler might as well try to avoid wasting time on - switching the VM state around. Currently only the old-style bdflush - sync does that. - - - "tsk->mm" points to the "real address space". For an anonymous process, - tsk->mm will be NULL, for the logical reason that an anonymous process - really doesn't _have_ a real address space at all. - - - however, we obviously need to keep track of which address space we - "stole" for such an anonymous user. For that, we have "tsk->active_mm", - which shows what the currently active address space is. - - The rule is that for a process with a real address space (ie tsk->mm is - non-NULL) the active_mm obviously always has to be the same as the real - one. - - For a anonymous process, tsk->mm == NULL, and tsk->active_mm is the - "borrowed" mm while the anonymous process is running. When the - anonymous process gets scheduled away, the borrowed address space is - returned and cleared. - - To support all that, the "struct mm_struct" now has two counters: a - "mm_users" counter that is how many "real address space users" there are, - and a "mm_count" counter that is the number of "lazy" users (ie anonymous - users) plus one if there are any real users. - - Usually there is at least one real user, but it could be that the real - user exited on another CPU while a lazy user was still active, so you do - actually get cases where you have a address space that is _only_ used by - lazy users. That is often a short-lived state, because once that thread - gets scheduled away in favour of a real thread, the "zombie" mm gets - released because "mm_count" becomes zero. - - Also, a new rule is that _nobody_ ever has "init_mm" as a real MM any - more. "init_mm" should be considered just a "lazy context when no other - context is available", and in fact it is mainly used just at bootup when - no real VM has yet been created. So code that used to check - - if (current->mm == &init_mm) - - should generally just do - - if (!current->mm) - - instead (which makes more sense anyway - the test is basically one of "do - we have a user context", and is generally done by the page fault handler - and things like that). - - Anyway, I put a pre-patch-2.3.13-1 on ftp.kernel.org just a moment ago, - because it slightly changes the interfaces to accommodate the alpha (who - would have thought it, but the alpha actually ends up having one of the - ugliest context switch codes - unlike the other architectures where the MM - and register state is separate, the alpha PALcode joins the two, and you - need to switch both together). - - (From http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=93337278602211&w=2) |