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-rw-r--r--Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt61
1 files changed, 16 insertions, 45 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt b/Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt
index e983ee4e2758..fa3b527086fa 100644
--- a/Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt
+++ b/Documentation/vm/unevictable-lru.txt
@@ -531,37 +531,20 @@ map.
try_to_unmap() is always called, by either vmscan for reclaim or for page
migration, with the argument page locked and isolated from the LRU. Separate
-functions handle anonymous and mapped file pages, as these types of pages have
-different reverse map mechanisms.
+functions handle anonymous and mapped file and KSM pages, as these types of
+pages have different reverse map lookup mechanisms, with different locking.
+In each case, whether rmap_walk_anon() or rmap_walk_file() or rmap_walk_ksm(),
+it will call try_to_unmap_one() for every VMA which might contain the page.
- (*) try_to_unmap_anon()
+When trying to reclaim, if try_to_unmap_one() finds the page in a VM_LOCKED
+VMA, it will then mlock the page via mlock_vma_page() instead of unmapping it,
+and return SWAP_MLOCK to indicate that the page is unevictable: and the scan
+stops there.
- To unmap anonymous pages, each VMA in the list anchored in the anon_vma
- must be visited - at least until a VM_LOCKED VMA is encountered. If the
- page is being unmapped for migration, VM_LOCKED VMAs do not stop the
- process because mlocked pages are migratable. However, for reclaim, if
- the page is mapped into a VM_LOCKED VMA, the scan stops.
-
- try_to_unmap_anon() attempts to acquire in read mode the mmap semaphore of
- the mm_struct to which the VMA belongs. If this is successful, it will
- mlock the page via mlock_vma_page() - we wouldn't have gotten to
- try_to_unmap_anon() if the page were already mlocked - and will return
- SWAP_MLOCK, indicating that the page is unevictable.
-
- If the mmap semaphore cannot be acquired, we are not sure whether the page
- is really unevictable or not. In this case, try_to_unmap_anon() will
- return SWAP_AGAIN.
-
- (*) try_to_unmap_file()
-
- Unmapping of a mapped file page works the same as for anonymous mappings,
- except that the scan visits all VMAs that map the page's index/page offset
- in the page's mapping's reverse map interval search tree.
-
- As for anonymous pages, on encountering a VM_LOCKED VMA for a mapped file
- page, try_to_unmap_file() will attempt to acquire the associated
- mm_struct's mmap semaphore to mlock the page, returning SWAP_MLOCK if this
- is successful, and SWAP_AGAIN, if not.
+mlock_vma_page() is called while holding the page table's lock (in addition
+to the page lock, and the rmap lock): to serialize against concurrent mlock or
+munlock or munmap system calls, mm teardown (munlock_vma_pages_all), reclaim,
+holepunching, and truncation of file pages and their anonymous COWed pages.
try_to_munlock() REVERSE MAP SCAN
@@ -577,22 +560,15 @@ all PTEs from the page. For this purpose, the unevictable/mlock infrastructure
introduced a variant of try_to_unmap() called try_to_munlock().
try_to_munlock() calls the same functions as try_to_unmap() for anonymous and
-mapped file pages with an additional argument specifying unlock versus unmap
+mapped file and KSM pages with a flag argument specifying unlock versus unmap
processing. Again, these functions walk the respective reverse maps looking
for VM_LOCKED VMAs. When such a VMA is found, as in the try_to_unmap() case,
-the functions attempt to acquire the associated mmap semaphore, mlock the page
-via mlock_vma_page() and return SWAP_MLOCK. This effectively undoes the
-pre-clearing of the page's PG_mlocked done by munlock_vma_page.
-
-If try_to_unmap() is unable to acquire a VM_LOCKED VMA's associated mmap
-semaphore, it will return SWAP_AGAIN. This will allow shrink_page_list() to
-recycle the page on the inactive list and hope that it has better luck with the
-page next time.
+the functions mlock the page via mlock_vma_page() and return SWAP_MLOCK. This
+undoes the pre-clearing of the page's PG_mlocked done by munlock_vma_page.
Note that try_to_munlock()'s reverse map walk must visit every VMA in a page's
reverse map to determine that a page is NOT mapped into any VM_LOCKED VMA.
-However, the scan can terminate when it encounters a VM_LOCKED VMA and can
-successfully acquire the VMA's mmap semaphore for read and mlock the page.
+However, the scan can terminate when it encounters a VM_LOCKED VMA.
Although try_to_munlock() might be called a great many times when munlocking a
large region or tearing down a large address space that has been mlocked via
mlockall(), overall this is a fairly rare event.
@@ -620,11 +596,6 @@ Some examples of these unevictable pages on the LRU lists are:
(3) mlocked pages that could not be isolated from the LRU and moved to the
unevictable list in mlock_vma_page().
- (4) Pages mapped into multiple VM_LOCKED VMAs, but try_to_munlock() couldn't
- acquire the VMA's mmap semaphore to test the flags and set PageMlocked.
- munlock_vma_page() was forced to let the page back on to the normal LRU
- list for vmscan to handle.
-
shrink_inactive_list() also diverts any unevictable pages that it finds on the
inactive lists to the appropriate zone's unevictable list.