|
|
@@ -31,7 +31,29 @@ struct hmm;
|
|
|
* it to keep track of whatever it is we are using the page for at the
|
|
|
* moment. Note that we have no way to track which tasks are using
|
|
|
* a page, though if it is a pagecache page, rmap structures can tell us
|
|
|
- * who is mapping it.
|
|
|
+ * who is mapping it. If you allocate the page using alloc_pages(), you
|
|
|
+ * can use some of the space in struct page for your own purposes.
|
|
|
+ *
|
|
|
+ * Pages that were once in the page cache may be found under the RCU lock
|
|
|
+ * even after they have been recycled to a different purpose. The page
|
|
|
+ * cache reads and writes some of the fields in struct page to pin the
|
|
|
+ * page before checking that it's still in the page cache. It is vital
|
|
|
+ * that all users of struct page:
|
|
|
+ * 1. Use the first word as PageFlags.
|
|
|
+ * 2. Clear or preserve bit 0 of page->compound_head. It is used as
|
|
|
+ * PageTail for compound pages, and the page cache must not see false
|
|
|
+ * positives. Some users put a pointer here (guaranteed to be at least
|
|
|
+ * 4-byte aligned), other users avoid using the field altogether.
|
|
|
+ * 3. page->_refcount must either not be used, or must be used in such a
|
|
|
+ * way that other CPUs temporarily incrementing and then decrementing the
|
|
|
+ * refcount does not cause problems. On receiving the page from
|
|
|
+ * alloc_pages(), the refcount will be positive.
|
|
|
+ * 4. Either preserve page->_mapcount or restore it to -1 before freeing it.
|
|
|
+ *
|
|
|
+ * If you allocate pages of order > 0, you can use the fields in the struct
|
|
|
+ * page associated with each page, but bear in mind that the pages may have
|
|
|
+ * been inserted individually into the page cache, so you must use the above
|
|
|
+ * four fields in a compatible way for each struct page.
|
|
|
*
|
|
|
* SLUB uses cmpxchg_double() to atomically update its freelist and
|
|
|
* counters. That requires that freelist & counters be adjacent and
|