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author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2017-01-11 20:15:15 +0100 |
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committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2017-01-11 20:15:15 +0100 |
commit | ba836a6f5ab1243ff5e08a941a2d1de8b31244e1 (patch) | |
tree | 8925b52d769d0d0170ed7d893d41c5e638917dba /Documentation | |
parent | Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net (diff) | |
parent | timerfd: export defines to userspace (diff) | |
download | linux-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')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/vm/page_frags | 42 |
1 files changed, 42 insertions, 0 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. |