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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2017-01-11 20:15:15 +0100
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2017-01-11 20:15:15 +0100
commitba836a6f5ab1243ff5e08a941a2d1de8b31244e1 (patch)
tree8925b52d769d0d0170ed7d893d41c5e638917dba /Documentation
parentMerge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net (diff)
parenttimerfd: export defines to userspace (diff)
downloadlinux-ba836a6f5ab1243ff5e08a941a2d1de8b31244e1.tar.xz
linux-ba836a6f5ab1243ff5e08a941a2d1de8b31244e1.zip
Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew)
Merge fixes from Andrew Morton: "27 fixes. There are three patches that aren't actually fixes. They're simple function renamings which are nice-to-have in mainline as ongoing net development depends on them." * akpm: (27 commits) timerfd: export defines to userspace mm/hugetlb.c: fix reservation race when freeing surplus pages mm/slab.c: fix SLAB freelist randomization duplicate entries zram: support BDI_CAP_STABLE_WRITES zram: revalidate disk under init_lock mm: support anonymous stable page mm: add documentation for page fragment APIs mm: rename __page_frag functions to __page_frag_cache, drop order from drain mm: rename __alloc_page_frag to page_frag_alloc and __free_page_frag to page_frag_free mm, memcg: fix the active list aging for lowmem requests when memcg is enabled mm: don't dereference struct page fields of invalid pages mailmap: add codeaurora.org names for nameless email commits signal: protect SIGNAL_UNKILLABLE from unintentional clearing. mm: pmd dirty emulation in page fault handler ipc/sem.c: fix incorrect sem_lock pairing lib/Kconfig.debug: fix frv build failure mm: get rid of __GFP_OTHER_NODE mm: fix remote numa hits statistics mm: fix devm_memremap_pages crash, use mem_hotplug_{begin, done} ocfs2: fix crash caused by stale lvb with fsdlm plugin ...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
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+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.