• Andy Whitcroft's avatar
    [PATCH] sparsemem memory model · d41dee36
    Andy Whitcroft authored
    Sparsemem abstracts the use of discontiguous mem_maps[].  This kind of
    mem_map[] is needed by discontiguous memory machines (like in the old
    CONFIG_DISCONTIGMEM case) as well as memory hotplug systems.  Sparsemem
    replaces DISCONTIGMEM when enabled, and it is hoped that it can eventually
    become a complete replacement.
    
    A significant advantage over DISCONTIGMEM is that it's completely separated
    from CONFIG_NUMA.  When producing this patch, it became apparent in that NUMA
    and DISCONTIG are often confused.
    
    Another advantage is that sparse doesn't require each NUMA node's ranges to be
    contiguous.  It can handle overlapping ranges between nodes with no problems,
    where DISCONTIGMEM currently throws away that memory.
    
    Sparsemem uses an array to provide different pfn_to_page() translations for
    each SECTION_SIZE area of physical memory.  This is what allows the mem_map[]
    to be chopped up.
    
    In order to do quick pfn_to_page() operations, the section number of the page
    is encoded in page->flags.  Part of the sparsemem infrastructure enables
    sharing of these bits more dynamically (at compile-time) between the
    page_zone() and sparsemem operations.  However, on 32-bit architectures, the
    number of bits is quite limited, and may require growing the size of the
    page->flags type in certain conditions.  Several things might force this to
    occur: a decrease in the SECTION_SIZE (if you want to hotplug smaller areas of
    memory), an increase in the physical address space, or an increase in the
    number of used page->flags.
    
    One thing to note is that, once sparsemem is present, the NUMA node
    information no longer needs to be stored in the page->flags.  It might provide
    speed increases on certain platforms and will be stored there if there is
    room.  But, if out of room, an alternate (theoretically slower) mechanism is
    used.
    
    This patch introduces CONFIG_FLATMEM.  It is used in almost all cases where
    there used to be an #ifndef DISCONTIG, because SPARSEMEM and DISCONTIGMEM
    often have to compile out the same areas of code.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarAndy Whitcroft <apw@shadowen.org>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarDave Hansen <haveblue@us.ibm.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarMartin Bligh <mbligh@aracnet.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarAdrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarYasunori Goto <y-goto@jp.fujitsu.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarBob Picco <bob.picco@hp.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
    d41dee36
sparse.c 2.02 KB