Components of Memory Policies
- A Linux memory policy is a tuple consisting of a "mode" and an optional set
- of nodes. The mode determine the behavior of the policy, while the
- optional set of nodes can be viewed as the arguments to the behavior.
+ 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.
- Note: in some functions AND in the struct mempolicy itself, the mode
- is called "policy". However, to avoid confusion with the policy tuple,
- this document will continue to use the term "mode".
-
Linux memory policy supports the following 4 behavioral modes:
- Default Mode--MPOL_DEFAULT: The behavior specified by this mode is
- context or scope dependent.
-
- As mentioned in the Policy Scope section above, during normal
- system operation, the System Default Policy is hard coded to
- contain the Default mode.
-
- In this context, default mode means "local" allocation--that is
- attempt to allocate the page from the node associated with the cpu
- where the fault occurs. If the "local" node has no memory, or the
- node's memory can be exhausted [no free pages available], local
- allocation will "fallback to"--attempt to allocate pages from--
- "nearby" nodes, in order of increasing "distance".
+ 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."
- Implementation detail -- subject to change: "Fallback" uses
- a per node list of sibling nodes--called zonelists--built at
- boot time, or when nodes or memory are added or removed from
- the system [memory hotplug]. These per node zonelist are
- constructed with nodes in order of increasing distance based
- on information provided by the platform firmware.
+ 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 a task/process policy or a shared policy contains the Default
- mode, this also means "local allocation", as described above.
+ When specified in one of the memory policy APIs, the Default mode
+ does not use the optional set of nodes.
- In the context of a VMA, Default mode means "fall back to task
- policy"--which may or may not specify Default mode. Thus, Default
- mode can not be counted on to mean local allocation when used
- on a non-shared region of the address space. However, see
- MPOL_PREFERRED below.
-
- 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.
-
- The memory policy APIs do not specify an order in which the nodes
- will be searched. However, unlike "local allocation", the Bind
- policy does not consider the distance between the nodes. Rather,
- allocations will fallback to the nodes specified by the policy in
- order of numeric node id. Like everything in Linux, this is subject
- to change.
+ 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, exactly as
- it would for a local allocation that started at the preferred node
- in increasing distance from the preferred node. "Local" allocation
- policy can be viewed as a Preferred policy that starts at the node
+ 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.
containing the cpu where the allocation takes place.
Internally, the Preferred policy uses a single node--the
- preferred_node member of struct mempolicy. A "distinguished
- value of this preferred_node, currently '-1', is interpreted
- as "the node containing the cpu where the allocation takes
- place"--local allocation. This is the way to specify
- local allocation for a specific range of addresses--i.e. for
- VMA policies.
+ 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 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 3,5-6. If the cpuset's mems
+ then change to 0,2-3,5, then the interleave occurs over nodes
+ 0,3,5.
+
+ 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, it's 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 expecially
+ 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
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.
+ 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
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, or
-the intersection of the set of nodes specified for the policy and the set of
-nodes with memory is the empty set, the policy is considered invalid
-and cannot be installed.
-
-The interaction of memory policies and cpusets can be problematic for a
-couple of reasons:
-
-1) the memory policy APIs take physical node id's as arguments. As mentioned
- above, it is illegal to specify nodes that are not allowed in the cpuset.
- The application must query the allowed nodes using the get_mempolicy()
- API with the MPOL_F_MEMS_ALLOWED flag to determine the allowed nodes and
- restrict itself to those nodes. However, the resources available to a
- cpuset can be changed by the system administrator, or a workload manager
- application, at any time. So, a task may still get errors attempting to
- specify policy nodes, and must query the allowed memories again.
-
-2) 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.
+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.
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