linux/arch
Mel Gorman eb33575cf6 [ARM] Double check memmap is actually valid with a memmap has unexpected holes V2
pfn_valid() is meant to be able to tell if a given PFN has valid memmap
associated with it or not. In FLATMEM, it is expected that holes always
have valid memmap as long as there is valid PFNs either side of the hole.
In SPARSEMEM, it is assumed that a valid section has a memmap for the
entire section.

However, ARM and maybe other embedded architectures in the future free
memmap backing holes to save memory on the assumption the memmap is never
used. The page_zone linkages are then broken even though pfn_valid()
returns true. A walker of the full memmap must then do this additional
check to ensure the memmap they are looking at is sane by making sure the
zone and PFN linkages are still valid. This is expensive, but walkers of
the full memmap are extremely rare.

This was caught before for FLATMEM and hacked around but it hits again for
SPARSEMEM because the page_zone linkages can look ok where the PFN linkages
are totally screwed. This looks like a hatchet job but the reality is that
any clean solution would end up consumning all the memory saved by punching
these unexpected holes in the memmap. For example, we tried marking the
memmap within the section invalid but the section size exceeds the size of
the hole in most cases so pfn_valid() starts returning false where valid
memmap exists. Shrinking the size of the section would increase memory
consumption offsetting the gains.

This patch identifies when an architecture is punching unexpected holes
in the memmap that the memory model cannot automatically detect and sets
ARCH_HAS_HOLES_MEMORYMODEL. At the moment, this is restricted to EP93xx
which is the model sub-architecture this has been reported on but may expand
later. When set, walkers of the full memmap must call memmap_valid_within()
for each PFN and passing in what it expects the page and zone to be for
that PFN. If it finds the linkages to be broken, it assumes the memmap is
invalid for that PFN.

Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Signed-off-by: Russell King <rmk+kernel@arm.linux.org.uk>
2009-05-18 11:22:24 +01:00
..
alpha alpha: unbreak percpu again 2009-05-12 14:11:35 -07:00
arm [ARM] Double check memmap is actually valid with a memmap has unexpected holes V2 2009-05-18 11:22:24 +01:00
avr32 avr32: drop unused CLEAN_FILES 2009-05-01 10:54:00 +02:00
blackfin clocksource: pass clocksource to read() callback 2009-04-21 13:41:47 -07:00
cris CRISv32: Fix typo compile error in ARTPEC-3 gpio driver. 2009-04-28 19:08:10 +02:00
frv FRV: Use __INIT macro instead of .text.init. 2009-04-27 19:46:30 -07:00
h8300 Get rid of final remnants of include/asm-$(ARCH) 2009-04-17 09:59:27 -07:00
ia64 [IA64] xen_domu_defconfig: fix build issues/warnings 2009-05-05 11:43:13 -07:00
m32r m32r: use __stringify() macro in assembler.h 2009-05-02 22:38:21 +09:00
m68k m68k: arch/m68k/kernel/sun3-head.S needs <linux/init.h> 2009-04-28 16:07:18 -07:00
m68knommu Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gerg/m68knommu 2009-04-24 08:45:53 -07:00
microblaze Merge branch 'fixes-for-linus' of git://git.monstr.eu/linux-2.6-microblaze 2009-05-08 16:24:25 -07:00
mips MIPS: Sibyte: Fix locking in set_irq_affinity 2009-05-14 13:50:30 +01:00
mn10300 mn10300: convert to use __HEAD and HEAD_TEXT macros. 2009-04-26 09:20:38 -07:00
parisc Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/kyle/parisc-2.6 2009-04-03 09:52:04 -07:00
powerpc Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.dk/linux-2.6-block 2009-05-15 08:05:37 -07:00
s390 s390: convert to use __HEAD and HEAD_TEXT macros. 2009-04-26 09:20:39 -07:00
sh sh: Use __INIT macro instead of .text.init. 2009-04-27 19:51:58 -07:00
sparc sparc: cleanup references to deprecated .text.init* sections. 2009-04-27 19:51:58 -07:00
um uml: kill a kconfig warning 2009-04-21 13:41:50 -07:00
x86 kgdb,i386: use address that SP register points to in the exception frame 2009-05-15 07:56:25 -05:00
xtensa xtensa: Fix linker script to include .literal sections 2009-05-11 23:40:33 -07:00
.gitignore
Kconfig mutex: have non-spinning mutexes on s390 by default 2009-04-09 19:28:24 +02:00