Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > linux.kernel > #1179821

Re: [PATCH V3 0/5] Allow user to request memory to be locked on page fault

Show all headers | View raw

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] - view raw

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015, Andrew Morton wrote:

> On Tue,  7 Jul 2015 13:03:38 -0400 Eric B Munson <emunson@akamai.com> wrote:
> 
> > mlock() allows a user to control page out of program memory, but this
> > comes at the cost of faulting in the entire mapping when it is
> > allocated.  For large mappings where the entire area is not necessary
> > this is not ideal.  Instead of forcing all locked pages to be present
> > when they are allocated, this set creates a middle ground.  Pages are
> > marked to be placed on the unevictable LRU (locked) when they are first
> > used, but they are not faulted in by the mlock call.
> > 
> > This series introduces a new mlock() system call that takes a flags
> > argument along with the start address and size.  This flags argument
> > gives the caller the ability to request memory be locked in the
> > traditional way, or to be locked after the page is faulted in.  New
> > calls are added for munlock() and munlockall() which give the called a
> > way to specify which flags are supposed to be cleared.  A new MCL flag
> > is added to mirror the lock on fault behavior from mlock() in
> > mlockall().  Finally, a flag for mmap() is added that allows a user to
> > specify that the covered are should not be paged out, but only after the
> > memory has been used the first time.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with this.  Adding new syscalls is a bit of a
> hassle but I do think we end up with a better interface - the existing
> mlock/munlock/mlockall interfaces just aren't appropriate for these
> things.
> 
> I don't know whether these syscalls should be documented via new
> manpages, or if we should instead add them to the existing
> mlock/munlock/mlockall manpages.  Michael, could you please advise?
> 

Thanks for adding the series.  I owe you several updates (getting the
new syscall right for all architectures and a set of tests for the new
syscalls).  Would you prefer a new pair of patches or I update this set?

Eric

Back to linux.kernel | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

[PATCH V3 0/5] Allow user to request memory to be locked on page fault Eric B Munson <emunson@akamai.com> - 2015-07-07 19:10 +0200
  [PATCH V3 3/5] mm: mlock: Introduce VM_LOCKONFAULT and add mlock flags to enable it Eric B Munson <emunson@akamai.com> - 2015-07-07 19:20 +0200
    Re: [PATCH V3 3/5] mm: mlock: Introduce VM_LOCKONFAULT and add  mlock flags to enable it Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> - 2015-07-10 18:20 +0200
      Re: [PATCH V3 3/5] mm: mlock: Introduce VM_LOCKONFAULT and add mlock  flags to enable it Eric B Munson <emunson@akamai.com> - 2015-07-10 18:30 +0200
  [PATCH V3 1/5] mm: mlock: Refactor mlock, munlock, and munlockall code Eric B Munson <emunson@akamai.com> - 2015-07-07 19:20 +0200
  Re: [PATCH V3 0/5] Allow user to request memory to be locked on page  fault Eric B Munson <emunson@akamai.com> - 2015-07-08 15:30 +0200

csiph-web