linux/mm
Izik Eidus 828502d300 ksm: add mmu_notifier set_pte_at_notify()
KSM is a linux driver that allows dynamicly sharing identical memory pages
between one or more processes.

Unlike tradtional page sharing that is made at the allocation of the
memory, ksm do it dynamicly after the memory was created.  Memory is
periodically scanned; identical pages are identified and merged.

The sharing is made in a transparent way to the processes that use it.

Ksm is highly important for hypervisors (kvm), where in production
enviorments there might be many copys of the same data data among the host
memory.  This kind of data can be: similar kernels, librarys, cache, and
so on.

Even that ksm was wrote for kvm, any userspace application that want to
use it to share its data can try it.

Ksm may be useful for any application that might have similar (page
aligment) data strctures among the memory, ksm will find this data merge
it to one copy, and even if it will be changed and thereforew copy on
writed, ksm will merge it again as soon as it will be identical again.

Another reason to consider using ksm is the fact that it might simplify
alot the userspace code of application that want to use shared private
data, instead that the application will mange shared area, ksm will do
this for the application, and even write to this data will be allowed
without any synchinization acts from the application.

Ksm was designed to be a loadable module that doesn't change the VM code
of linux.

This patch:

The set_pte_at_notify() macro allows setting a pte in the shadow page
table directly, instead of flushing the shadow page table entry and then
getting vmexit to set it.  It uses a new change_pte() callback to do so.

set_pte_at_notify() is an optimization for kvm, and other users of
mmu_notifiers, for COW pages.  It is useful for kvm when ksm is used,
because it allows kvm not to have to receive vmexit and only then map the
ksm page into the shadow page table, but instead map it directly at the
same time as Linux maps the page into the host page table.

Users of mmu_notifiers who don't implement new mmu_notifier_change_pte()
callback will just receive the mmu_notifier_invalidate_page() callback.

Signed-off-by: Izik Eidus <ieidus@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Chris Wright <chrisw@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh.dickins@tiscali.co.uk>
Cc: Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@redhat.com>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Cc: Balbir Singh <balbir@in.ibm.com>
Cc: Hugh Dickins <hugh.dickins@tiscali.co.uk>
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@hp.com>
Cc: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
Cc: Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2009-09-22 07:17:31 -07:00
..
allocpercpu.c percpu: use dynamic percpu allocator as the default percpu allocator 2009-06-24 15:13:35 +09:00
backing-dev.c writeback: splice dirty inode entries to default bdi on bdi_destroy() 2009-09-16 15:18:52 +02:00
bootmem.c kmemleak: Do not report alloc_bootmem blocks as leaks 2009-08-27 14:29:17 +01:00
bounce.c block: remove some includings of blktrace_api.h 2009-06-16 11:19:36 +02:00
debug-pagealloc.c generic debug pagealloc 2009-04-01 08:59:13 -07:00
dmapool.c dmapools: protect page_list walk in show_pools() 2009-06-30 18:56:00 -07:00
fadvise.c readahead: move max_sane_readahead() calls into force_page_cache_readahead() 2009-06-16 19:47:28 -07:00
failslab.c kmemtrace, mm: fix slab.h dependency problem in mm/failslab.c 2009-04-03 12:23:01 +02:00
filemap_xip.c mm: do_xip_mapping_read: fix length calculation 2009-04-02 19:04:49 -07:00
filemap.c mm: oom analysis: add shmem vmstat 2009-09-22 07:17:27 -07:00
fremap.c Do not account for the address space used by hugetlbfs using VM_ACCOUNT 2009-02-10 10:48:42 -08:00
highmem.c block: remove some includings of blktrace_api.h 2009-06-16 11:19:36 +02:00
hugetlb.c hugetlb: restore interleaving of bootmem huge pages 2009-09-22 07:17:26 -07:00
init-mm.c mm: consolidate init_mm definition 2009-06-16 19:47:28 -07:00
internal.h vmscan: do not unconditionally treat zones that fail zone_reclaim() as full 2009-06-16 19:47:45 -07:00
Kconfig Merge branch 'x86-pat-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip 2009-09-15 09:19:38 -07:00
Kconfig.debug kmemcheck: enable in the x86 Kconfig 2009-06-15 15:49:15 +02:00
kmemcheck.c kmemcheck: add hooks for the page allocator 2009-06-15 15:48:33 +02:00
kmemleak-test.c percpu: clean up percpu variable definitions 2009-06-24 15:13:48 +09:00
kmemleak.c kmemleak: Improve the "Early log buffer exceeded" error message 2009-09-11 10:42:09 +01:00
maccess.c [S390] maccess: add weak attribute to probe_kernel_write 2009-06-12 10:27:37 +02:00
madvise.c mm: madvise(): correct return code 2009-06-16 19:47:40 -07:00
Makefile Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/percpu 2009-09-15 09:39:44 -07:00
memcontrol.c cgroup avoid permanent sleep at rmdir 2009-07-29 19:10:35 -07:00
memory_hotplug.c memory hotplug: update zone pcp at memory online 2009-09-22 07:17:25 -07:00
memory.c ksm: add mmu_notifier set_pte_at_notify() 2009-09-22 07:17:31 -07:00
mempolicy.c mm: make set_mempolicy(MPOL_INTERLEAV) N_HIGH_MEMORY aware 2009-08-07 10:39:55 -07:00
mempool.c mempool.c: clean up type-casting 2009-08-10 08:31:16 -07:00
migrate.c mm: vmstat: add isolate pages 2009-09-22 07:17:29 -07:00
mincore.c [CVE-2009-0029] System call wrappers part 14 2009-01-14 14:15:24 +01:00
mlock.c mm: remove CONFIG_UNEVICTABLE_LRU config option 2009-06-16 19:47:42 -07:00
mm_init.c mm: mminit_loglevel cannot be __meminitdata anymore 2008-08-20 15:40:30 -07:00
mmap.c perf: Do the big rename: Performance Counters -> Performance Events 2009-09-21 14:28:04 +02:00
mmu_notifier.c ksm: add mmu_notifier set_pte_at_notify() 2009-09-22 07:17:31 -07:00
mmzone.c [ARM] Double check memmap is actually valid with a memmap has unexpected holes V2 2009-05-18 11:22:24 +01:00
mprotect.c perf: Do the big rename: Performance Counters -> Performance Events 2009-09-21 14:28:04 +02:00
mremap.c [CVE-2009-0029] System call wrappers part 13 2009-01-14 14:15:23 +01:00
msync.c [CVE-2009-0029] System call wrappers part 13 2009-01-14 14:15:23 +01:00
nommu.c nommu: fix error handling in do_mmap_pgoff() 2009-09-05 11:30:42 -07:00
oom_kill.c mm: revert "oom: move oom_adj value" 2009-08-18 16:31:13 -07:00
page_alloc.c mm: perform non-atomic test-clear of PG_mlocked on free 2009-09-22 07:17:30 -07:00
page_cgroup.c memory hotplug: alloc page from other node in memory online 2009-09-22 07:17:26 -07:00
page_io.c mm: remove file argument from swap_readpage() 2009-06-16 19:47:44 -07:00
page_isolation.c memory hotplug: fix page_zone() calculation in test_pages_isolated() 2008-11-06 15:41:19 -08:00
page-writeback.c mm: count only reclaimable lru pages 2009-09-22 07:17:30 -07:00
pagewalk.c pagemap: pass mm into pagewalkers 2008-06-12 18:05:41 -07:00
percpu.c Merge branch 'for-next' into for-linus 2009-09-15 09:57:19 +09:00
prio_tree.c
quicklist.c percpu: cleanup percpu array definitions 2009-06-24 15:13:45 +09:00
readahead.c readahead: introduce context readahead algorithm 2009-06-16 19:47:30 -07:00
rmap.c mm: clean up page_remove_rmap() 2009-09-22 07:17:26 -07:00
shmem_acl.c shmfs: use 'check_acl' instead of 'permission' 2009-09-08 11:08:46 -07:00
shmem.c Driver Core: devtmpfs - kernel-maintained tmpfs-based /dev 2009-09-15 09:50:49 -07:00
slab.c SLAB: Fix lockdep annotations 2009-06-29 09:57:10 +03:00
slob.c slab: remove duplicate kmem_cache_init_late() declarations 2009-08-06 11:36:25 +03:00
slub.c slub: Fix build error in kmem_cache_open() with !CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG 2009-09-15 22:32:10 +03:00
sparse-vmemmap.c memory hotplug: alloc page from other node in memory online 2009-09-22 07:17:26 -07:00
sparse.c memory hotplug: alloc page from other node in memory online 2009-09-22 07:17:26 -07:00
swap_state.c writeback: add name to backing_dev_info 2009-09-11 09:20:26 +02:00
swap.c mm: fix Committed_AS underflow on large NR_CPUS environment 2009-05-02 15:36:10 -07:00
swapfile.c block: use blkdev_issue_discard in blk_ioctl_discard 2009-09-14 08:24:53 +02:00
thrash.c mm: pass mm to grab_swap_token 2009-06-23 12:50:05 -07:00
truncate.c mm: remove __invalidate_mapping_pages variant 2009-06-16 19:47:43 -07:00
util.c Merge branches 'slab/documentation', 'slab/fixes', 'slob/cleanups' and 'slub/fixes' into for-linus 2009-06-17 08:30:15 +03:00
vmalloc.c vmalloc.c: fix double error checking 2009-09-22 07:17:30 -07:00
vmscan.c vmscan: kill unnecessary prefetch 2009-09-22 07:17:30 -07:00
vmstat.c mm: vmstat: add isolate pages 2009-09-22 07:17:29 -07:00