aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorColin Cross <ccross@android.com>2015-10-27 16:42:08 -0700
committerAmit Pundir <amit.pundir@linaro.org>2015-11-20 19:02:04 +0530
commit587961860c1dd44a231dad1df2c3e58b7f77a963 (patch)
treef18ac20f1512c175606c3dc1f7f6084e0bf70a79 /Documentation
parentffd02cd063c4512d16238fb05c29e232fed7bfca (diff)
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 If the userspace pointer is no longer valid all or part of the name will be replaced with "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. Includes fix from Jed Davis <jld@mozilla.com> for typo in prctl_set_vma_anon_name, which could attempt to set the name across two vmas at the same time due to a typo, which might corrupt the vma list. Fix it to use tmp instead of end to limit the name setting to a single vma at a time. Change-Id: I9aa7b6b5ef536cd780599ba4e2fba8ceebe8b59f Signed-off-by: Dmitry Shmidt <dimitrysh@google.com>
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 402ab99e409f..0bcba2823d9d 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
@@ -381,6 +381,8 @@ is not associated with a file:
[stack:1001] = the stack of the thread with tid 1001
[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.
@@ -435,6 +437,7 @@ KernelPageSize: 4 kB
MMUPageSize: 4 kB
Locked: 0 kB
VmFlags: rd ex mr mw me dw
+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
@@ -497,6 +500,9 @@ Note that there is no guarantee that every flag and associated mnemonic will
be present in all further kernel releases. Things get changed, the flags may
be vanished or the reverse -- new added.
+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.