mainlining shenanigans
Go to file
Tiberiu A Georgescu cbbb69d3c4 Documentation: update pagemap with shmem exceptions
This patch follows the discussions on previous documentation patch
threads [1][2].  It presents the exception case of shared memory
management from the pagemap's point of view.  It briefly describes what
is missing, why it is missing and alternatives to the pagemap for page
info retrieval in user space.

In short, the kernel does not keep track of PTEs for swapped out shared
pages within the processes that references them.  Thus, the
proc/pid/pagemap tool cannot print the swap destination of the shared
memory pages, instead setting the pagemap entry to zero for both
non-allocated and swapped out pages.  This can create confusion for
users who need information on swapped out pages.

The reasons why maintaining the PTEs of all swapped out shared pages
among all processes while maintaining similar performance is not a
trivial task, or a desirable change, have been discussed extensively
[1][3][4][5].  There are also arguments for why this arguably missing
information should eventually be exposed to the user in either a future
pagemap patch, or by an alternative tool.

[1]: https://marc.info/?m=162878395426774
[2]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210920164931.175411-1-tiberiu.georgescu@nutanix.com/
[3]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210730160826.63785-1-tiberiu.georgescu@nutanix.com/
[4]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210807032521.7591-1-peterx@redhat.com/
[5]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210715201651.212134-1-peterx@redhat.com/

Mention the current missing information in the pagemap and alternatives
on how to retrieve it, in case someone stumbles upon unexpected
behaviour.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210923064618.157046-1-tiberiu.georgescu@nutanix.com
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210923064618.157046-2-tiberiu.georgescu@nutanix.com
Signed-off-by: Tiberiu A Georgescu <tiberiu.georgescu@nutanix.com>
Reviewed-by: Ivan Teterevkov <ivan.teterevkov@nutanix.com>
Reviewed-by: Florian Schmidt <florian.schmidt@nutanix.com>
Reviewed-by: Carl Waldspurger <carl.waldspurger@nutanix.com>
Reviewed-by: Jonathan Davies <jonathan.davies@nutanix.com>
Reviewed-by: Peter Xu <peterx@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2021-11-06 13:30:36 -07:00
arch * Fixes for s390 interrupt delivery 2021-10-31 11:19:02 -07:00
block block-5.15-2021-10-29 2021-10-29 11:10:29 -07:00
certs certs: Add support for using elliptic curve keys for signing modules 2021-08-23 19:55:42 +03:00
crypto Merge branch 'linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2021-08-30 12:57:10 -07:00
Documentation Documentation: update pagemap with shmem exceptions 2021-11-06 13:30:36 -07:00
drivers mtd: call bdi_unregister explicitly 2021-11-06 13:30:34 -07:00
fs fs: explicitly unregister per-superblock BDIs 2021-11-06 13:30:34 -07:00
include mm: add zap_skip_check_mapping() helper 2021-11-06 13:30:36 -07:00
init mm: disable NUMA_BALANCING_DEFAULT_ENABLED and TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE on PREEMPT_RT 2021-11-06 13:30:33 -07:00
ipc ipc: remove memcg accounting for sops objects in do_semtimedop() 2021-09-14 10:22:11 -07:00
kernel mm/mmap.c: fix a data race of mm->total_vm 2021-11-06 13:30:35 -07:00
lib kasan: test: bypass __alloc_size checks 2021-11-06 13:30:33 -07:00
LICENSES LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0: Git rid of "smart quotes" 2021-07-15 06:31:24 -06:00
mm mm: remove redundant smp_wmb() 2021-11-06 13:30:36 -07:00
net mptcp: fix corrupt receiver key in MPC + data + checksum 2021-10-28 08:19:06 -07:00
samples samples/bpf: Relicense bpf_insn.h as GPL-2.0-only OR BSD-2-Clause 2021-09-29 16:03:55 +02:00
scripts Compiler Attributes: add __alloc_size() for better bounds checking 2021-11-06 13:30:33 -07:00
security Merge branch 'ucount-fixes-for-v5.15' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/ebiederm/user-namespace 2021-10-21 17:27:17 -10:00
sound ALSA: usb-audio: Fix microphone sound on Jieli webcam. 2021-10-19 08:07:01 +02:00
tools perf script: Fix PERF_SAMPLE_WEIGHT_STRUCT support 2021-10-31 12:51:41 -03:00
usr .gitignore: prefix local generated files with a slash 2021-05-02 00:43:35 +09:00
virt KVM: Remove tlbs_dirty 2021-09-23 11:01:12 -04:00
.clang-format clang-format: Update with the latest for_each macro list 2021-05-12 23:32:39 +02:00
.cocciconfig
.get_maintainer.ignore Opt out of scripts/get_maintainer.pl 2019-05-16 10:53:40 -07:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: use 'dts' diff driver for dts files 2019-12-04 19:44:11 -08:00
.gitignore .gitignore: ignore only top-level modules.builtin 2021-05-02 00:43:35 +09:00
.mailmap mailmap: add Andrej Shadura 2021-10-18 20:22:03 -10:00
COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: Move Daniel Drake to credits 2021-09-21 08:34:58 +03:00
Kbuild kbuild: rename hostprogs-y/always to hostprogs/always-y 2020-02-04 01:53:07 +09:00
Kconfig kbuild: ensure full rebuild when the compiler is updated 2020-05-12 13:28:33 +09:00
MAINTAINERS drm fixes for 5.15 final 2021-10-28 12:17:01 -07:00
Makefile Compiler Attributes: add __alloc_size() for better bounds checking 2021-11-06 13:30:33 -07:00
README Drop all 00-INDEX files from Documentation/ 2018-09-09 15:08:58 -06:00

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.