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-
-What is Linux Memory Policy?
-
-In the Linux kernel, "memory policy" determines from which node the kernel will
-allocate memory in a NUMA system or in an emulated NUMA system. Linux has
-supported platforms with Non-Uniform Memory Access architectures since 2.4.?.
-The current memory policy support was added to Linux 2.6 around May 2004. This
-document attempts to describe the concepts and APIs of the 2.6 memory policy
-support.
-
-Memory policies should not be confused with cpusets
-(Documentation/cgroup-v1/cpusets.txt)
-which is an administrative mechanism for restricting the nodes from which
-memory may be allocated by a set of processes. Memory policies are a
-programming interface that a NUMA-aware application can take advantage of. When
-both cpusets and policies are applied to a task, the restrictions of the cpuset
-takes priority. See "MEMORY POLICIES AND CPUSETS" below for more details.
-
-MEMORY POLICY CONCEPTS
-
-Scope of Memory Policies
-
-The Linux kernel supports _scopes_ of memory policy, described here from
-most general to most specific:
-
- System Default Policy: this policy is "hard coded" into the kernel. It
- is the policy that governs all page allocations that aren't controlled
- by one of the more specific policy scopes discussed below. When the
- system is "up and running", the system default policy will use "local
- allocation" described below. However, during boot up, the system
- default policy will be set to interleave allocations across all nodes
- with "sufficient" memory, so as not to overload the initial boot node
- with boot-time allocations.
-
- Task/Process Policy: this is an optional, per-task policy. When defined
- for a specific task, this policy controls all page allocations made by or
- on behalf of the task that aren't controlled by a more specific scope.
- If a task does not define a task policy, then all page allocations that
- would have been controlled by the task policy "fall back" to the System
- Default Policy.
-
- The task policy applies to the entire address space of a task. Thus,
- it is inheritable, and indeed is inherited, across both fork()
- [clone() w/o the CLONE_VM flag] and exec*(). This allows a parent task
- to establish the task policy for a child task exec()'d from an
- executable image that has no awareness of memory policy. See the
- MEMORY POLICY APIS section, below, for an overview of the system call
- that a task may use to set/change its task/process policy.
-
- In a multi-threaded task, task policies apply only to the thread
- [Linux kernel task] that installs the policy and any threads
- subsequently created by that thread. Any sibling threads existing
- at the time a new task policy is installed retain their current
- policy.
-
- A task policy applies only to pages allocated after the policy is
- installed. Any pages already faulted in by the task when the task
- changes its task policy remain where they were allocated based on
- the policy at the time they were allocated.
-
- VMA Policy: A "VMA" or "Virtual Memory Area" refers to a range of a task's
- virtual address space. A task may define a specific policy for a range
- of its virtual address space. See the MEMORY POLICIES APIS section,
- below, for an overview of the mbind() system call used to set a VMA
- policy.
-
- A VMA policy will govern the allocation of pages that back this region of
- the address space. Any regions of the task's address space that don't
- have an explicit VMA policy will fall back to the task policy, which may
- itself fall back to the System Default Policy.
-
- VMA policies have a few complicating details:
-
- VMA policy applies ONLY to anonymous pages. These include pages
- allocated for anonymous segments, such as the task stack and heap, and
- any regions of the address space mmap()ed with the MAP_ANONYMOUS flag.
- If a VMA policy is applied to a file mapping, it will be ignored if
- the mapping used the MAP_SHARED flag. If the file mapping used the
- MAP_PRIVATE flag, the VMA policy will only be applied when an
- anonymous page is allocated on an attempt to write to the mapping--
- i.e., at Copy-On-Write.
-
- VMA policies are shared between all tasks that share a virtual address
- space--a.k.a. threads--independent of when the policy is installed; and
- they are inherited across fork(). However, because VMA policies refer
- to a specific region of a task's address space, and because the address
- space is discarded and recreated on exec*(), VMA policies are NOT
- inheritable across exec(). Thus, only NUMA-aware applications may
- use VMA policies.
-
- A task may install a new VMA policy on a sub-range of a previously
- mmap()ed region. When this happens, Linux splits the existing virtual
- memory area into 2 or 3 VMAs, each with it's own policy.
-
- By default, VMA policy applies only to pages allocated after the policy
- is installed. Any pages already faulted into the VMA range remain
- where they were allocated based on the policy at the time they were
- allocated. However, since 2.6.16, Linux supports page migration via
- the mbind() system call, so that page contents can be moved to match
- a newly installed policy.
-
- Shared Policy: Conceptually, shared policies apply to "memory objects"
- mapped shared into one or more tasks' distinct address spaces. An
- application installs a shared policies the same way as VMA policies--using
- the mbind() system call specifying a range of virtual addresses that map
- the shared object. However, unlike VMA policies, which can be considered
- to be an attribute of a range of a task's address space, shared policies
- apply directly to the shared object. Thus, all tasks that attach to the
- object share the policy, and all pages allocated for the shared object,
- by any task, will obey the shared policy.
-
- As of 2.6.22, only shared memory segments, created by shmget() or
- mmap(MAP_ANONYMOUS|MAP_SHARED), support shared policy. When shared
- policy support was added to Linux, the associated data structures were
- added to hugetlbfs shmem segments. At the time, hugetlbfs did not
- support allocation at fault time--a.k.a lazy allocation--so hugetlbfs
- shmem segments were never "hooked up" to the shared policy support.
- Although hugetlbfs segments now support lazy allocation, their support
- for shared policy has not been completed.
-
- As mentioned above [re: VMA policies], allocations of page cache
- pages for regular files mmap()ed with MAP_SHARED ignore any VMA
- policy installed on the virtual address range backed by the shared
- file mapping. Rather, shared page cache pages, including pages backing
- private mappings that have not yet been written by the task, follow
- task policy, if any, else System Default Policy.
-
- The shared policy infrastructure supports different policies on subset
- ranges of the shared object. However, Linux still splits the VMA of
- the task that installs the policy for each range of distinct policy.
- Thus, different tasks that attach to a shared memory segment can have
- different VMA configurations mapping that one shared object. This
- can be seen by examining the /proc/<pid>/numa_maps of tasks sharing
- a shared memory region, when one task has installed shared policy on
- one or more ranges of the region.
-
-Components of Memory Policies
-
- A Linux memory policy consists of a "mode", optional mode flags, and an
- optional set of nodes. The mode determines the behavior of the policy,
- the optional mode flags determine the behavior of the mode, and the
- optional set of nodes can be viewed as the arguments to the policy
- behavior.
-
- Internally, memory policies are implemented by a reference counted
- structure, struct mempolicy. Details of this structure will be discussed
- in context, below, as required to explain the behavior.
-
- Linux memory policy supports the following 4 behavioral modes:
-
- Default Mode--MPOL_DEFAULT: This mode is only used in the memory
- policy APIs. Internally, MPOL_DEFAULT is converted to the NULL
- memory policy in all policy scopes. Any existing non-default policy
- will simply be removed when MPOL_DEFAULT is specified. As a result,
- MPOL_DEFAULT means "fall back to the next most specific policy scope."
-
- For example, a NULL or default task policy will fall back to the
- system default policy. A NULL or default vma policy will fall
- back to the task policy.
-
- When specified in one of the memory policy APIs, the Default mode
- does not use the optional set of nodes.
-
- It is an error for the set of nodes specified for this policy to
- be non-empty.
-
- MPOL_BIND: This mode specifies that memory must come from the
- set of nodes specified by the policy. Memory will be allocated from
- the node in the set with sufficient free memory that is closest to
- the node where the allocation takes place.
-
- MPOL_PREFERRED: This mode specifies that the allocation should be
- attempted from the single node specified in the policy. If that
- allocation fails, the kernel will search other nodes, in order of
- increasing distance from the preferred node based on information
- provided by the platform firmware.
-
- Internally, the Preferred policy uses a single node--the
- preferred_node member of struct mempolicy. When the internal
- mode flag MPOL_F_LOCAL is set, the preferred_node is ignored and
- the policy is interpreted as local allocation. "Local" allocation
- policy can be viewed as a Preferred policy that starts at the node
- containing the cpu where the allocation takes place.
-
- It is possible for the user to specify that local allocation is
- always preferred by passing an empty nodemask with this mode.
- If an empty nodemask is passed, the policy cannot use the
- MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES or MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES flags described
- below.
-
- MPOL_INTERLEAVED: This mode specifies that page allocations be
- interleaved, on a page granularity, across the nodes specified in
- the policy. This mode also behaves slightly differently, based on
- the context where it is used:
-
- For allocation of anonymous pages and shared memory pages,
- Interleave mode indexes the set of nodes specified by the policy
- using the page offset of the faulting address into the segment
- [VMA] containing the address modulo the number of nodes specified
- by the policy. It then attempts to allocate a page, starting at
- the selected node, as if the node had been specified by a Preferred
- policy or had been selected by a local allocation. That is,
- allocation will follow the per node zonelist.
-
- For allocation of page cache pages, Interleave mode indexes the set
- of nodes specified by the policy using a node counter maintained
- per task. This counter wraps around to the lowest specified node
- after it reaches the highest specified node. This will tend to
- spread the pages out over the nodes specified by the policy based
- on the order in which they are allocated, rather than based on any
- page offset into an address range or file. During system boot up,
- the temporary interleaved system default policy works in this
- mode.
-
- Linux memory policy supports the following optional mode flags:
-
- MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES: This flag specifies that the nodemask passed by
- the user should not be remapped if the task or VMA's set of allowed
- nodes changes after the memory policy has been defined.
-
- Without this flag, anytime a mempolicy is rebound because of a
- change in the set of allowed nodes, the node (Preferred) or
- nodemask (Bind, Interleave) is remapped to the new set of
- allowed nodes. This may result in nodes being used that were
- previously undesired.
-
- With this flag, if the user-specified nodes overlap with the
- nodes allowed by the task's cpuset, then the memory policy is
- applied to their intersection. If the two sets of nodes do not
- overlap, the Default policy is used.
-
- For example, consider a task that is attached to a cpuset with
- mems 1-3 that sets an Interleave policy over the same set. If
- the cpuset's mems change to 3-5, the Interleave will now occur
- over nodes 3, 4, and 5. With this flag, however, since only node
- 3 is allowed from the user's nodemask, the "interleave" only
- occurs over that node. If no nodes from the user's nodemask are
- now allowed, the Default behavior is used.
-
- MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES cannot be combined with the
- MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES flag. It also cannot be used for
- MPOL_PREFERRED policies that were created with an empty nodemask
- (local allocation).
-
- MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES: This flag specifies that the nodemask passed
- by the user will be mapped relative to the set of the task or VMA's
- set of allowed nodes. The kernel stores the user-passed nodemask,
- and if the allowed nodes changes, then that original nodemask will
- be remapped relative to the new set of allowed nodes.
-
- Without this flag (and without MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES), anytime a
- mempolicy is rebound because of a change in the set of allowed
- nodes, the node (Preferred) or nodemask (Bind, Interleave) is
- remapped to the new set of allowed nodes. That remap may not
- preserve the relative nature of the user's passed nodemask to its
- set of allowed nodes upon successive rebinds: a nodemask of
- 1,3,5 may be remapped to 7-9 and then to 1-3 if the set of
- allowed nodes is restored to its original state.
-
- With this flag, the remap is done so that the node numbers from
- the user's passed nodemask are relative to the set of allowed
- nodes. In other words, if nodes 0, 2, and 4 are set in the user's
- nodemask, the policy will be effected over the first (and in the
- Bind or Interleave case, the third and fifth) nodes in the set of
- allowed nodes. The nodemask passed by the user represents nodes
- relative to task or VMA's set of allowed nodes.
-
- If the user's nodemask includes nodes that are outside the range
- of the new set of allowed nodes (for example, node 5 is set in
- the user's nodemask when the set of allowed nodes is only 0-3),
- then the remap wraps around to the beginning of the nodemask and,
- if not already set, sets the node in the mempolicy nodemask.
-
- For example, consider a task that is attached to a cpuset with
- mems 2-5 that sets an Interleave policy over the same set with
- MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES. If the cpuset's mems change to 3-7, the
- interleave now occurs over nodes 3,5-7. If the cpuset's mems
- then change to 0,2-3,5, then the interleave occurs over nodes
- 0,2-3,5.
-
- Thanks to the consistent remapping, applications preparing
- nodemasks to specify memory policies using this flag should
- disregard their current, actual cpuset imposed memory placement
- and prepare the nodemask as if they were always located on
- memory nodes 0 to N-1, where N is the number of memory nodes the
- policy is intended to manage. Let the kernel then remap to the
- set of memory nodes allowed by the task's cpuset, as that may
- change over time.
-
- MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES cannot be combined with the
- MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES flag. It also cannot be used for
- MPOL_PREFERRED policies that were created with an empty nodemask
- (local allocation).
-
-MEMORY POLICY REFERENCE COUNTING
-
-To resolve use/free races, struct mempolicy contains an atomic reference
-count field. Internal interfaces, mpol_get()/mpol_put() increment and
-decrement this reference count, respectively. mpol_put() will only free
-the structure back to the mempolicy kmem cache when the reference count
-goes to zero.
-
-When a new memory policy is allocated, its reference count is initialized
-to '1', representing the reference held by the task that is installing the
-new policy. When a pointer to a memory policy structure is stored in another
-structure, another reference is added, as the task's reference will be dropped
-on completion of the policy installation.
-
-During run-time "usage" of the policy, we attempt to minimize atomic operations
-on the reference count, as this can lead to cache lines bouncing between cpus
-and NUMA nodes. "Usage" here means one of the following:
-
-1) querying of the policy, either by the task itself [using the get_mempolicy()
- API discussed below] or by another task using the /proc/<pid>/numa_maps
- interface.
-
-2) examination of the policy to determine the policy mode and associated node
- or node lists, if any, for page allocation. This is considered a "hot
- path". Note that for MPOL_BIND, the "usage" extends across the entire
- allocation process, which may sleep during page reclaimation, because the
- BIND policy nodemask is used, by reference, to filter ineligible nodes.
-
-We can avoid taking an extra reference during the usages listed above as
-follows:
-
-1) we never need to get/free the system default policy as this is never
- changed nor freed, once the system is up and running.
-
-2) for querying the policy, we do not need to take an extra reference on the
- target task's task policy nor vma policies because we always acquire the
- task's mm's mmap_sem for read during the query. The set_mempolicy() and
- mbind() APIs [see below] always acquire the mmap_sem for write when
- installing or replacing task or vma policies. Thus, there is no possibility
- of a task or thread freeing a policy while another task or thread is
- querying it.
-
-3) Page allocation usage of task or vma policy occurs in the fault path where
- we hold them mmap_sem for read. Again, because replacing the task or vma
- policy requires that the mmap_sem be held for write, the policy can't be
- freed out from under us while we're using it for page allocation.
-
-4) Shared policies require special consideration. One task can replace a
- shared memory policy while another task, with a distinct mmap_sem, is
- querying or allocating a page based on the policy. To resolve this
- potential race, the shared policy infrastructure adds an extra reference
- to the shared policy during lookup while holding a spin lock on the shared
- policy management structure. This requires that we drop this extra
- reference when we're finished "using" the policy. We must drop the
- extra reference on shared policies in the same query/allocation paths
- used for non-shared policies. For this reason, shared policies are marked
- as such, and the extra reference is dropped "conditionally"--i.e., only
- for shared policies.
-
- Because of this extra reference counting, and because we must lookup
- shared policies in a tree structure under spinlock, shared policies are
- more expensive to use in the page allocation path. This is especially
- true for shared policies on shared memory regions shared by tasks running
- on different NUMA nodes. This extra overhead can be avoided by always
- falling back to task or system default policy for shared memory regions,
- or by prefaulting the entire shared memory region into memory and locking
- it down. However, this might not be appropriate for all applications.
-
-MEMORY POLICY APIs
-
-Linux supports 3 system calls for controlling memory policy. These APIS
-always affect only the calling task, the calling task's address space, or
-some shared object mapped into the calling task's address space.
-
- Note: the headers that define these APIs and the parameter data types
- for user space applications reside in a package that is not part of
- the Linux kernel. The kernel system call interfaces, with the 'sys_'
- prefix, are defined in <linux/syscalls.h>; the mode and flag
- definitions are defined in <linux/mempolicy.h>.
-
-Set [Task] Memory Policy:
-
- long set_mempolicy(int mode, const unsigned long *nmask,
- unsigned long maxnode);
-
- Set's the calling task's "task/process memory policy" to mode
- specified by the 'mode' argument and the set of nodes defined
- by 'nmask'. 'nmask' points to a bit mask of node ids containing
- at least 'maxnode' ids. Optional mode flags may be passed by
- combining the 'mode' argument with the flag (for example:
- MPOL_INTERLEAVE | MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES).
-
- See the set_mempolicy(2) man page for more details
-
-
-Get [Task] Memory Policy or Related Information
-
- long get_mempolicy(int *mode,
- const unsigned long *nmask, unsigned long maxnode,
- void *addr, int flags);
-
- Queries the "task/process memory policy" of the calling task, or
- the policy or location of a specified virtual address, depending
- on the 'flags' argument.
-
- See the get_mempolicy(2) man page for more details
-
-
-Install VMA/Shared Policy for a Range of Task's Address Space
-
- long mbind(void *start, unsigned long len, int mode,
- const unsigned long *nmask, unsigned long maxnode,
- unsigned flags);
-
- mbind() installs the policy specified by (mode, nmask, maxnodes) as
- a VMA policy for the range of the calling task's address space
- specified by the 'start' and 'len' arguments. Additional actions
- may be requested via the 'flags' argument.
-
- See the mbind(2) man page for more details.
-
-MEMORY POLICY COMMAND LINE INTERFACE
-
-Although not strictly part of the Linux implementation of memory policy,
-a command line tool, numactl(8), exists that allows one to:
-
-+ set the task policy for a specified program via set_mempolicy(2), fork(2) and
- exec(2)
-
-+ set the shared policy for a shared memory segment via mbind(2)
-
-The numactl(8) tool is packaged with the run-time version of the library
-containing the memory policy system call wrappers. Some distributions
-package the headers and compile-time libraries in a separate development
-package.
-
-
-MEMORY POLICIES AND CPUSETS
-
-Memory policies work within cpusets as described above. For memory policies
-that require a node or set of nodes, the nodes are restricted to the set of
-nodes whose memories are allowed by the cpuset constraints. If the nodemask
-specified for the policy contains nodes that are not allowed by the cpuset and
-MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES is not used, the intersection of the set of nodes
-specified for the policy and the set of nodes with memory is used. If the
-result is the empty set, the policy is considered invalid and cannot be
-installed. If MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES is used, the policy's nodes are mapped
-onto and folded into the task's set of allowed nodes as previously described.
-
-The interaction of memory policies and cpusets can be problematic when tasks
-in two cpusets share access to a memory region, such as shared memory segments
-created by shmget() of mmap() with the MAP_ANONYMOUS and MAP_SHARED flags, and
-any of the tasks install shared policy on the region, only nodes whose
-memories are allowed in both cpusets may be used in the policies. Obtaining
-this information requires "stepping outside" the memory policy APIs to use the
-cpuset information and requires that one know in what cpusets other task might
-be attaching to the shared region. Furthermore, if the cpusets' allowed
-memory sets are disjoint, "local" allocation is the only valid policy.