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authorPavel Emelyanov <xemul@parallels.com>2013-07-03 15:01:20 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2013-07-03 16:07:26 -0700
commit0f8975ec4db2c8b5bd111b211292ca9be0feb6b8 (patch)
tree47bb0acc9fc3e783ad9cf33097a6636190f5e42b /mm/Kconfig
parent2b0a9f017548f05e42fbf7e67c4a626c1ebd5e12 (diff)
mm: soft-dirty bits for user memory changes tracking
The soft-dirty is a bit on a PTE which helps to track which pages a task writes to. In order to do this tracking one should 1. Clear soft-dirty bits from PTEs ("echo 4 > /proc/PID/clear_refs) 2. Wait some time. 3. Read soft-dirty bits (55'th in /proc/PID/pagemap2 entries) To do this tracking, the writable bit is cleared from PTEs when the soft-dirty bit is. Thus, after this, when the task tries to modify a page at some virtual address the #PF occurs and the kernel sets the soft-dirty bit on the respective PTE. Note, that although all the task's address space is marked as r/o after the soft-dirty bits clear, the #PF-s that occur after that are processed fast. This is so, since the pages are still mapped to physical memory, and thus all the kernel does is finds this fact out and puts back writable, dirty and soft-dirty bits on the PTE. Another thing to note, is that when mremap moves PTEs they are marked with soft-dirty as well, since from the user perspective mremap modifies the virtual memory at mremap's new address. Signed-off-by: Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@parallels.com> Cc: Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> Cc: Xiao Guangrong <xiaoguangrong@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Cc: Glauber Costa <glommer@parallels.com> Cc: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com> Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@gmail.com> Cc: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'mm/Kconfig')
-rw-r--r--mm/Kconfig12
1 files changed, 12 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/mm/Kconfig b/mm/Kconfig
index f5e698e30d4a..7e28ecfa8aa4 100644
--- a/mm/Kconfig
+++ b/mm/Kconfig
@@ -477,3 +477,15 @@ config FRONTSWAP
and swap data is stored as normal on the matching swap device.
If unsure, say Y to enable frontswap.
+
+config MEM_SOFT_DIRTY
+ bool "Track memory changes"
+ depends on CHECKPOINT_RESTORE && HAVE_ARCH_SOFT_DIRTY
+ select PROC_PAGE_MONITOR
+ help
+ This option enables memory changes tracking by introducing a
+ soft-dirty bit on pte-s. This bit it set when someone writes
+ into a page just as regular dirty bit, but unlike the latter
+ it can be cleared by hands.
+
+ See Documentation/vm/soft-dirty.txt for more details.