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-rw-r--r--Documentation/vm/page_frags42
-rw-r--r--Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt10
2 files changed, 50 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/vm/page_frags b/Documentation/vm/page_frags
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..a6714565dbf9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/vm/page_frags
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+Page fragments
+--------------
+
+A page fragment is an arbitrary-length arbitrary-offset area of memory
+which resides within a 0 or higher order compound page. Multiple
+fragments within that page are individually refcounted, in the page's
+reference counter.
+
+The page_frag functions, page_frag_alloc and page_frag_free, provide a
+simple allocation framework for page fragments. This is used by the
+network stack and network device drivers to provide a backing region of
+memory for use as either an sk_buff->head, or to be used in the "frags"
+portion of skb_shared_info.
+
+In order to make use of the page fragment APIs a backing page fragment
+cache is needed. This provides a central point for the fragment allocation
+and tracks allows multiple calls to make use of a cached page. The
+advantage to doing this is that multiple calls to get_page can be avoided
+which can be expensive at allocation time. However due to the nature of
+this caching it is required that any calls to the cache be protected by
+either a per-cpu limitation, or a per-cpu limitation and forcing interrupts
+to be disabled when executing the fragment allocation.
+
+The network stack uses two separate caches per CPU to handle fragment
+allocation. The netdev_alloc_cache is used by callers making use of the
+__netdev_alloc_frag and __netdev_alloc_skb calls. The napi_alloc_cache is
+used by callers of the __napi_alloc_frag and __napi_alloc_skb calls. The
+main difference between these two calls is the context in which they may be
+called. The "netdev" prefixed functions are usable in any context as these
+functions will disable interrupts, while the "napi" prefixed functions are
+only usable within the softirq context.
+
+Many network device drivers use a similar methodology for allocating page
+fragments, but the page fragments are cached at the ring or descriptor
+level. In order to enable these cases it is necessary to provide a generic
+way of tearing down a page cache. For this reason __page_frag_cache_drain
+was implemented. It allows for freeing multiple references from a single
+page via a single call. The advantage to doing this is that it allows for
+cleaning up the multiple references that were added to a page in order to
+avoid calling get_page per allocation.
+
+Alexander Duyck, Nov 29, 2016.
diff --git a/Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt b/Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt
index c4171e4519c2..cd28d5ee5273 100644
--- a/Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt
+++ b/Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt
@@ -110,6 +110,7 @@ MADV_HUGEPAGE region.
echo always >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
echo defer >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
+echo defer+madvise >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
echo madvise >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
echo never >/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
@@ -120,10 +121,15 @@ that benefit heavily from THP use and are willing to delay the VM start
to utilise them.
"defer" means that an application will wake kswapd in the background
-to reclaim pages and wake kcompact to compact memory so that THP is
+to reclaim pages and wake kcompactd to compact memory so that THP is
available in the near future. It's the responsibility of khugepaged
to then install the THP pages later.
+"defer+madvise" will enter direct reclaim and compaction like "always", but
+only for regions that have used madvise(MADV_HUGEPAGE); all other regions
+will wake kswapd in the background to reclaim pages and wake kcompactd to
+compact memory so that THP is available in the near future.
+
"madvise" will enter direct reclaim like "always" but only for regions
that are have used madvise(MADV_HUGEPAGE). This is the default behaviour.
@@ -296,7 +302,7 @@ thp_split_page is incremented every time a huge page is split into base
reason is that a huge page is old and is being reclaimed.
This action implies splitting all PMD the page mapped with.
-thp_split_page_failed is is incremented if kernel fails to split huge
+thp_split_page_failed is incremented if kernel fails to split huge
page. This can happen if the page was pinned by somebody.
thp_deferred_split_page is incremented when a huge page is put onto split
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