Commit f9451df2 authored by Mike Rapoport's avatar Mike Rapoport Committed by Jonathan Corbet

docs/vm: userfaultfd.txt: convert to ReST format

Signed-off-by: default avatarMike Rapoport <rppt@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarJonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
parent a5e4da91
= Userfaultfd =
.. _userfaultfd:
== Objective ==
===========
Userfaultfd
===========
Objective
=========
Userfaults allow the implementation of on-demand paging from userland
and more generally they allow userland to take control of various
......@@ -9,7 +14,8 @@ memory page faults, something otherwise only the kernel code could do.
For example userfaults allows a proper and more optimal implementation
of the PROT_NONE+SIGSEGV trick.
== Design ==
Design
======
Userfaults are delivered and resolved through the userfaultfd syscall.
......@@ -41,7 +47,8 @@ different processes without them being aware about what is going on
themselves on the same region the manager is already tracking, which
is a corner case that would currently return -EBUSY).
== API ==
API
===
When first opened the userfaultfd must be enabled invoking the
UFFDIO_API ioctl specifying a uffdio_api.api value set to UFFD_API (or
......@@ -101,7 +108,8 @@ UFFDIO_COPY. They're atomic as in guaranteeing that nothing can see an
half copied page since it'll keep userfaulting until the copy has
finished.
== QEMU/KVM ==
QEMU/KVM
========
QEMU/KVM is using the userfaultfd syscall to implement postcopy live
migration. Postcopy live migration is one form of memory
......@@ -163,7 +171,8 @@ sending the same page twice (in case the userfault is read by the
postcopy thread just before UFFDIO_COPY|ZEROPAGE runs in the migration
thread).
== Non-cooperative userfaultfd ==
Non-cooperative userfaultfd
===========================
When the userfaultfd is monitored by an external manager, the manager
must be able to track changes in the process virtual memory
......@@ -172,27 +181,30 @@ the same read(2) protocol as for the page fault notifications. The
manager has to explicitly enable these events by setting appropriate
bits in uffdio_api.features passed to UFFDIO_API ioctl:
UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_FORK - enable userfaultfd hooks for fork(). When
this feature is enabled, the userfaultfd context of the parent process
is duplicated into the newly created process. The manager receives
UFFD_EVENT_FORK with file descriptor of the new userfaultfd context in
the uffd_msg.fork.
UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_REMAP - enable notifications about mremap()
calls. When the non-cooperative process moves a virtual memory area to
a different location, the manager will receive UFFD_EVENT_REMAP. The
uffd_msg.remap will contain the old and new addresses of the area and
its original length.
UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_REMOVE - enable notifications about
madvise(MADV_REMOVE) and madvise(MADV_DONTNEED) calls. The event
UFFD_EVENT_REMOVE will be generated upon these calls to madvise. The
uffd_msg.remove will contain start and end addresses of the removed
area.
UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_UNMAP - enable notifications about memory
unmapping. The manager will get UFFD_EVENT_UNMAP with uffd_msg.remove
containing start and end addresses of the unmapped area.
UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_FORK
enable userfaultfd hooks for fork(). When this feature is
enabled, the userfaultfd context of the parent process is
duplicated into the newly created process. The manager
receives UFFD_EVENT_FORK with file descriptor of the new
userfaultfd context in the uffd_msg.fork.
UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_REMAP
enable notifications about mremap() calls. When the
non-cooperative process moves a virtual memory area to a
different location, the manager will receive
UFFD_EVENT_REMAP. The uffd_msg.remap will contain the old and
new addresses of the area and its original length.
UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_REMOVE
enable notifications about madvise(MADV_REMOVE) and
madvise(MADV_DONTNEED) calls. The event UFFD_EVENT_REMOVE will
be generated upon these calls to madvise. The uffd_msg.remove
will contain start and end addresses of the removed area.
UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_UNMAP
enable notifications about memory unmapping. The manager will
get UFFD_EVENT_UNMAP with uffd_msg.remove containing start and
end addresses of the unmapped area.
Although the UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_REMOVE and UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_UNMAP
are pretty similar, they quite differ in the action expected from the
......
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