diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/vm')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt | 12 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/vm/z3fold.txt | 26 |
2 files changed, 32 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt b/Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt index fb0e1f2a19cc..7c871d6beb63 100644 --- a/Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt +++ b/Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt @@ -340,7 +340,7 @@ unaffected. libhugetlbfs will also work fine as usual. == Graceful fallback == -Code walking pagetables but unware about huge pmds can simply call +Code walking pagetables but unaware about huge pmds can simply call split_huge_pmd(vma, pmd, addr) where the pmd is the one returned by pmd_offset. It's trivial to make the code transparent hugepage aware by just grepping for "pmd_offset" and adding split_huge_pmd where @@ -414,7 +414,7 @@ tracking. The alternative is alter ->_mapcount in all subpages on each map/unmap of the whole compound page. We set PG_double_map when a PMD of the page got split for the first time, -but still have PMD mapping. The addtional references go away with last +but still have PMD mapping. The additional references go away with last compound_mapcount. split_huge_page internally has to distribute the refcounts in the head @@ -432,10 +432,10 @@ page->_mapcount. We safe against physical memory scanners too: the only legitimate way scanner can get reference to a page is get_page_unless_zero(). -All tail pages has zero ->_refcount until atomic_add(). It prevent scanner -from geting reference to tail page up to the point. After the atomic_add() -we don't care about ->_refcount value. We already known how many references -with should uncharge from head page. +All tail pages have zero ->_refcount until atomic_add(). This prevents the +scanner from getting a reference to the tail page up to that point. After the +atomic_add() we don't care about the ->_refcount value. We already known how +many references should be uncharged from the head page. For head page get_page_unless_zero() will succeed and we don't mind. It's clear where reference should go after split: it will stay on head page. diff --git a/Documentation/vm/z3fold.txt b/Documentation/vm/z3fold.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..38e4dac810b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/vm/z3fold.txt @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +z3fold +------ + +z3fold is a special purpose allocator for storing compressed pages. +It is designed to store up to three compressed pages per physical page. +It is a zbud derivative which allows for higher compression +ratio keeping the simplicity and determinism of its predecessor. + +The main differences between z3fold and zbud are: +* unlike zbud, z3fold allows for up to PAGE_SIZE allocations +* z3fold can hold up to 3 compressed pages in its page +* z3fold doesn't export any API itself and is thus intended to be used + via the zpool API. + +To keep the determinism and simplicity, z3fold, just like zbud, always +stores an integral number of compressed pages per page, but it can store +up to 3 pages unlike zbud which can store at most 2. Therefore the +compression ratio goes to around 2.7x while zbud's one is around 1.7x. + +Unlike zbud (but like zsmalloc for that matter) z3fold_alloc() does not +return a dereferenceable pointer. Instead, it returns an unsigned long +handle which encodes actual location of the allocated object. + +Keeping effective compression ratio close to zsmalloc's, z3fold doesn't +depend on MMU enabled and provides more predictable reclaim behavior +which makes it a better fit for small and response-critical systems. |