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authorColin Cross <ccross@android.com>2015-10-05 16:13:04 +0200
committerSimon Shields <keepcalm444@gmail.com>2016-08-23 04:55:14 -0700
commit8aa6fa75955db416644e6c9367b350c25cb6745c (patch)
treedb5c4ef8c8cf97794c1c02cf389960e2bb9e8305 /Documentation
parent6112c4d4e3408cf2aea5a626a3e39ba3922094c5 (diff)
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mm: add a field to store names for private anonymous memory
Userspace processes often have multiple allocators that each do anonymous mmaps to get memory. When examining memory usage of individual processes or systems as a whole, it is useful to be able to break down the various heaps that were allocated by each layer and examine their size, RSS, and physical memory usage. This patch adds a user pointer to the shared union in vm_area_struct that points to a null terminated string inside the user process containing a name for the vma. vmas that point to the same address will be merged, but vmas that point to equivalent strings at different addresses will not be merged. Userspace can set the name for a region of memory by calling prctl(PR_SET_VMA, PR_SET_VMA_ANON_NAME, start, len, (unsigned long)name); Setting the name to NULL clears it. The names of named anonymous vmas are shown in /proc/pid/maps as [anon:<name>] and in /proc/pid/smaps in a new "Name" field that is only present for named vmas. If the userspace pointer is no longer valid all or part of the name will be replaced with "<fault>". The idea to store a userspace pointer to reduce the complexity within mm (at the expense of the complexity of reading /proc/pid/mem) came from Dave Hansen. This results in no runtime overhead in the mm subsystem other than comparing the anon_name pointers when considering vma merging. The pointer is stored in a union with fieds that are only used on file-backed mappings, so it does not increase memory usage. Change-Id: I53b093d98dc24f41377824f34e076edced4a6f07
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt6
1 files changed, 6 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
index db3b1aba32a..6b0d09873be 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
@@ -354,6 +354,8 @@ is not associated with a file:
[stack] = the stack of the main process
[vdso] = the "virtual dynamic shared object",
the kernel system call handler
+ [anon:<name>] = an anonymous mapping that has been
+ named by userspace
or if empty, the mapping is anonymous.
@@ -376,6 +378,7 @@ Swap: 0 kB
KernelPageSize: 4 kB
MMUPageSize: 4 kB
Locked: 374 kB
+Name: name from userspace
The first of these lines shows the same information as is displayed for the
mapping in /proc/PID/maps. The remaining lines show the size of the mapping
@@ -391,6 +394,9 @@ and a page is modified, the file page is replaced by a private anonymous copy.
"Swap" shows how much would-be-anonymous memory is also used, but out on
swap.
+The "Name" field will only be present on a mapping that has been named by
+userspace, and will show the name passed in by userspace.
+
This file is only present if the CONFIG_MMU kernel configuration option is
enabled.