linux/Documentation/vm/memory-model.rst

.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0

.. _physical_memory_model:

=====================
Physical Memory Model
=====================

Physical memory in a system may be addressed in different ways. The
simplest case is when the physical memory starts at address 0 and
spans a contiguous range up to the maximal address. It could be,
however, that this range contains small holes that are not accessible
for the CPU. Then there could be several contiguous ranges at
completely distinct addresses. And, don't forget about NUMA, where
different memory banks are attached to different CPUs.

Linux abstracts this diversity using one of the three memory models:
FLATMEM, DISCONTIGMEM and SPARSEMEM. Each architecture defines what
memory models it supports, what the default memory model is and
whether it is possible to manually override that default.

.. note::
   At time of this writing, DISCONTIGMEM is considered deprecated,
   although it is still in use by several architectures.

All the memory models track the status of physical page frames using
:c:type:`struct page` arranged in one or more arrays.

Regardless of the selected memory model, there exists one-to-one
mapping between the physical page frame number (PFN) and the
corresponding `struct page`.

Each memory model defines :c:func:`pfn_to_page` and :c:func:`page_to_pfn`
helpers that allow the conversion from PFN to `struct page` and vice
versa.

FLATMEM
=======

The simplest memory model is FLATMEM. This model is suitable for
non-NUMA systems with contiguous, or mostly contiguous, physical
memory.

In the FLATMEM memory model, there is a global `mem_map` array that
maps the entire physical memory. For most architectures, the holes
have entries in the `mem_map` array. The `struct page` objects
corresponding to the holes are never fully initialized.

To allocate the `mem_map` array, architecture specific setup code
should call :c:func:`free_area_init_node` function or its convenience
wrapper :c:func:`free_area_init`. Yet, the mappings array is not
usable until the call to :c:func:`memblock_free_all` that hands all
the memory to the page allocator.

If an architecture enables `CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_HOLES_MEMORYMODEL` option,
it may free parts of the `mem_map` array that do not cover the
actual physical pages. In such case, the architecture specific
:c:func:`pfn_valid` implementation should take the holes in the
`mem_map` into account.

With FLATMEM, the conversion between a PFN and the `struct page` is
straightforward: `PFN - ARCH_PFN_OFFSET` is an index to the
`mem_map` array.

The `ARCH_PFN_OFFSET` defines the first page frame number for
systems with physical memory starting at address different from 0.

DISCONTIGMEM
============

The DISCONTIGMEM model treats the physical memory as a collection of
`nodes` similarly to how Linux NUMA support does. For each node Linux
constructs an independent memory management subsystem represented by
`struct pglist_data` (or `pg_data_t` for short). Among other
things, `pg_data_t` holds the `node_mem_map` array that maps
physical pages belonging to that node. The `node_start_pfn` field of
`pg_data_t` is the number of the first page frame belonging to that
node.

The architecture setup code should call :c:func:`free_area_init_node` for
each node in the system to initialize the `pg_data_t` object and its
`node_mem_map`.

Every `node_mem_map` behaves exactly as FLATMEM's `mem_map` -
every physical page frame in a node has a `struct page` entry in the
`node_mem_map` array. When DISCONTIGMEM is enabled, a portion of the
`flags` field of the `struct page` encodes the node number of the
node hosting that page.

The conversion between a PFN and the `struct page` in the
DISCONTIGMEM model became slightly more complex as it has to determine
which node hosts the physical page and which `pg_data_t` object
holds the `struct page`.

Architectures that support DISCONTIGMEM provide :c:func:`pfn_to_nid`
to convert PFN to the node number. The opposite conversion helper
:c:func:`page_to_nid` is generic as it uses the node number encoded in
page->flags.

Once the node number is known, the PFN can be used to index
appropriate `node_mem_map` array to access the `struct page` and
the offset of the `struct page` from the `node_mem_map` plus
`node_start_pfn` is the PFN of that page.

SPARSEMEM
=========

SPARSEMEM is the most versatile memory model available in Linux and it
is the only memory model that supports several advanced features such
as hot-plug and hot-remove of the physical memory, alternative memory
maps for non-volatile memory devices and deferred initialization of
the memory map for larger systems.

The SPARSEMEM model presents the physical memory as a collection of
sections. A section is represented with :c:type:`struct mem_section`
that contains `section_mem_map` that is, logically, a pointer to an
array of struct pages. However, it is stored with some other magic
that aids the sections management. The section size and maximal number
of section is specified using `SECTION_SIZE_BITS` and
`MAX_PHYSMEM_BITS` constants defined by each architecture that
supports SPARSEMEM. While `MAX_PHYSMEM_BITS` is an actual width of a
physical address that an architecture supports, the
`SECTION_SIZE_BITS` is an arbitrary value.

The maximal number of sections is denoted `NR_MEM_SECTIONS` and
defined as

.. math::

   NR\_MEM\_SECTIONS = 2 ^ {(MAX\_PHYSMEM\_BITS - SECTION\_SIZE\_BITS)}

The `mem_section` objects are arranged in a two-dimensional array
called `mem_sections`. The size and placement of this array depend
on `CONFIG_SPARSEMEM_EXTREME` and the maximal possible number of
sections:

* When `CONFIG_SPARSEMEM_EXTREME` is disabled, the `mem_sections`
  array is static and has `NR_MEM_SECTIONS` rows. Each row holds a
  single `mem_section` object.
* When `CONFIG_SPARSEMEM_EXTREME` is enabled, the `mem_sections`
  array is dynamically allocated. Each row contains PAGE_SIZE worth of
  `mem_section` objects and the number of rows is calculated to fit
  all the memory sections.

The architecture setup code should call :c:func:`memory_present` for
each active memory range or use :c:func:`memblocks_present` or
:c:func:`sparse_memory_present_with_active_regions` wrappers to
initialize the memory sections. Next, the actual memory maps should be
set up using :c:func:`sparse_init`.

With SPARSEMEM there are two possible ways to convert a PFN to the
corresponding `struct page` - a "classic sparse" and "sparse
vmemmap". The selection is made at build time and it is determined by
the value of `CONFIG_SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP`.

The classic sparse encodes the section number of a page in page->flags
and uses high bits of a PFN to access the section that maps that page
frame. Inside a section, the PFN is the index to the array of pages.

The sparse vmemmap uses a virtually mapped memory map to optimize
pfn_to_page and page_to_pfn operations. There is a global `struct
page *vmemmap` pointer that points to a virtually contiguous array of
`struct page` objects. A PFN is an index to that array and the the
offset of the `struct page` from `vmemmap` is the PFN of that
page.

To use vmemmap, an architecture has to reserve a range of virtual
addresses that will map the physical pages containing the memory
map and make sure that `vmemmap` points to that range. In addition,
the architecture should implement :c:func:`vmemmap_populate` method
that will allocate the physical memory and create page tables for the
virtual memory map. If an architecture does not have any special
requirements for the vmemmap mappings, it can use default
:c:func:`vmemmap_populate_basepages` provided by the generic memory
management.

The virtually mapped memory map allows storing `struct page` objects
for persistent memory devices in pre-allocated storage on those
devices. This storage is represented with :c:type:`struct vmem_altmap`
that is eventually passed to vmemmap_populate() through a long chain
of function calls. The vmemmap_populate() implementation may use the
`vmem_altmap` along with :c:func:`altmap_alloc_block_buf` helper to
allocate memory map on the persistent memory device.