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author | Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> | 2018-04-16 14:25:08 -0600 |
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committer | Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> | 2018-04-16 14:25:08 -0600 |
commit | 24844fd33945470942c954324ad2c655929000cc (patch) | |
tree | 391b2999f1900e0ca93349000fd8b334a77615c7 /Documentation/vm/active_mm.rst | |
parent | 32fb7ef69a9f1e3c8ec18a174fbc474b90ee645e (diff) | |
parent | 82381918c4712ba107d3e4ff7117751f396018f7 (diff) | |
download | linux-stable-24844fd33945470942c954324ad2c655929000cc.tar.gz linux-stable-24844fd33945470942c954324ad2c655929000cc.tar.bz2 linux-stable-24844fd33945470942c954324ad2c655929000cc.zip |
Merge branch 'mm-rst' into docs-next
Mike Rapoport says:
These patches convert files in Documentation/vm to ReST format, add an
initial index and link it to the top level documentation.
There are no contents changes in the documentation, except few spelling
fixes. The relatively large diffstat stems from the indentation and
paragraph wrapping changes.
I've tried to keep the formatting as consistent as possible, but I could
miss some places that needed markup and add some markup where it was not
necessary.
[jc: significant conflicts in vm/hmm.rst]
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/vm/active_mm.rst')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/vm/active_mm.rst | 91 |
1 files changed, 91 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/vm/active_mm.rst b/Documentation/vm/active_mm.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..c84471b180f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/vm/active_mm.rst @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ +.. _active_mm: + +========= +Active MM +========= + +:: + + List: linux-kernel + Subject: Re: active_mm + From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds () transmeta ! com> + Date: 1999-07-30 21:36:24 + + Cc'd to linux-kernel, because I don't write explanations all that often, + and when I do I feel better about more people reading them. + + On Fri, 30 Jul 1999, David Mosberger wrote: + > + > Is there a brief description someplace on how "mm" vs. "active_mm" in + > the task_struct are supposed to be used? (My apologies if this was + > discussed on the mailing lists---I just returned from vacation and + > wasn't able to follow linux-kernel for a while). + + Basically, the new setup is: + + - we have "real address spaces" and "anonymous address spaces". The + difference is that an anonymous address space doesn't care about the + user-level page tables at all, so when we do a context switch into an + anonymous address space we just leave the previous address space + active. + + The obvious use for a "anonymous address space" is any thread that + doesn't need any user mappings - all kernel threads basically fall into + this category, but even "real" threads can temporarily say that for + some amount of time they are not going to be interested in user space, + and that the scheduler might as well try to avoid wasting time on + switching the VM state around. Currently only the old-style bdflush + sync does that. + + - "tsk->mm" points to the "real address space". For an anonymous process, + tsk->mm will be NULL, for the logical reason that an anonymous process + really doesn't _have_ a real address space at all. + + - however, we obviously need to keep track of which address space we + "stole" for such an anonymous user. For that, we have "tsk->active_mm", + which shows what the currently active address space is. + + The rule is that for a process with a real address space (ie tsk->mm is + non-NULL) the active_mm obviously always has to be the same as the real + one. + + For a anonymous process, tsk->mm == NULL, and tsk->active_mm is the + "borrowed" mm while the anonymous process is running. When the + anonymous process gets scheduled away, the borrowed address space is + returned and cleared. + + To support all that, the "struct mm_struct" now has two counters: a + "mm_users" counter that is how many "real address space users" there are, + and a "mm_count" counter that is the number of "lazy" users (ie anonymous + users) plus one if there are any real users. + + Usually there is at least one real user, but it could be that the real + user exited on another CPU while a lazy user was still active, so you do + actually get cases where you have a address space that is _only_ used by + lazy users. That is often a short-lived state, because once that thread + gets scheduled away in favour of a real thread, the "zombie" mm gets + released because "mm_users" becomes zero. + + Also, a new rule is that _nobody_ ever has "init_mm" as a real MM any + more. "init_mm" should be considered just a "lazy context when no other + context is available", and in fact it is mainly used just at bootup when + no real VM has yet been created. So code that used to check + + if (current->mm == &init_mm) + + should generally just do + + if (!current->mm) + + instead (which makes more sense anyway - the test is basically one of "do + we have a user context", and is generally done by the page fault handler + and things like that). + + Anyway, I put a pre-patch-2.3.13-1 on ftp.kernel.org just a moment ago, + because it slightly changes the interfaces to accommodate the alpha (who + would have thought it, but the alpha actually ends up having one of the + ugliest context switch codes - unlike the other architectures where the MM + and register state is separate, the alpha PALcode joins the two, and you + need to switch both together). + + (From http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=93337278602211&w=2) |