[PATCH] rmap 39 add anon_vma rmap
From: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com> Andrea Arcangeli's anon_vma object-based reverse mapping scheme for anonymous pages. Instead of tracking anonymous pages by pte_chains or by mm, this tracks them by vma. But because vmas are frequently split and merged (particularly by mprotect), a page cannot point directly to its vma(s), but instead to an anon_vma list of those vmas likely to contain the page - a list on which vmas can easily be linked and unlinked as they come and go. The vmas on one list are all related, either by forking or by splitting. This has three particular advantages over anonmm: that it can cope effortlessly with mremap moves; and no longer needs page_table_lock to protect an mm's vma tree, since try_to_unmap finds vmas via page -> anon_vma -> vma instead of using find_vma; and should use less cpu for swapout since it can locate its anonymous vmas more quickly. It does have disadvantages too: a lot more change in mmap.c to deal with anon_vmas, though small straightforward additions now that the vma merging has been refactored there; more lowmem needed for each anon_vma and vma structure; an additional restriction on the merging of vmas (cannot be merged if already assigned different anon_vmas, since then their pages will be pointing to different heads). (There would be no need to enlarge the vma structure if anonymous pages belonged only to anonymous vmas; but private file mappings accumulate anonymous pages by copy-on-write, so need to be listed in both anon_vma and prio_tree at the same time. A different implementation could avoid that by using anon_vmas only for purely anonymous vmas, and use the existing prio_tree to locate cow pages - but that would involve a long search for each single private copy, probably not a good idea.) Where before the vm_pgoff of a purely anonymous (not file-backed) vma was meaningless, now it represents the virtual start address at which that vma is mapped - which the standard file pgoff manipulations treat linearly as vmas are split and merged. But if mremap moves the vma, then it generally carries its original vm_pgoff to the new location, so pages shared with the old location can still be found. Magic. Hugh has massaged it somewhat: building on the earlier rmap patches, this patch is a fifth of the size of Andrea's original anon_vma patch. Please note that this posting will be his first sight of this patch, which he may or may not approve.
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