Add some explanation and method to use write-protection and written-to on memory range.
Signed-off-by: Muhammad Usama Anjum usama.anjum@collabora.com --- Changes in v20: - Add new flag in documentation
Changes in v19: - Improved documentatiom with punctuation marks
Changes in v16: - Update the documentation
Changes in v11: - Add more documentation --- Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst | 58 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 58 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst index c8f380271cad..84c14ce86ad4 100644 --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/pagemap.rst @@ -227,3 +227,61 @@ Before Linux 3.11 pagemap bits 55-60 were used for "page-shift" (which is always 12 at most architectures). Since Linux 3.11 their meaning changes after first clear of soft-dirty bits. Since Linux 4.2 they are used for flags unconditionally. + +Pagemap Scan IOCTL +================== + +The ``PAGEMAP_SCAN`` IOCTL on the pagemap file can be used to get or optionally +clear the info about page table entries. The following operations are supported +in this IOCTL: +- Get the information if the pages have been written to (``PAGE_IS_WRITTEN``), + file mapped (``PAGE_IS_FILE``), present (``PAGE_IS_PRESENT``), swapped + (``PAGE_IS_SWAPPED``) or page has pfn zero (``PAGE_IS_PFNZERO``). +- Find pages which have been written to and/or write protect the pages atomically + (atomic ``PM_SCAN_OP_GET + PM_SCAN_OP_WP``) + +The ``struct pm_scan_arg`` is used as the argument of the IOCTL. + 1. The size of the ``struct pm_scan_arg`` must be specified in the ``size`` + field. This field will be helpful in recognizing the structure if extensions + are done later. + 2. The flags can be specified in the ``flags`` field. The ``PM_SCAN_OP_GET`` + and ``PM_SCAN_OP_WP`` are the only added flags at this time. + 3. The range is specified through ``start`` and ``len``. + 4. The output buffer of ``struct page_region`` array and size is specified in + ``vec`` and ``vec_len``. + 5. The optional maximum requested pages are specified in the ``max_pages``. + 6. The masks are specified in ``required_mask``, ``anyof_mask``, + ``excluded_ mask`` and ``return_mask``. + 1. To find if ``PAGE_IS_WRITTEN`` flag is set for pages which have + ``PAGE_IS_FILE`` set and ``PAGE_IS_SWAPPED`` unset, ``required_mask`` + is set to ``PAGE_IS_FILE``, ``exclude_mask`` is set to + ``PAGE_IS_SWAPPED`` and ``return_mask`` is set to ``PAGE_IS_WRITTEN``. + The output buffer in ``vec`` and length must be specified in ``vec_len``. + 2. To find pages which have either ``PAGE_IS_FILE`` or ``PAGE_IS_SWAPPED`` + set, ``anyof_masks`` is set to ``PAGE_IS_FILE | PAGE_IS_SWAPPED``. + 3. To find written pages and engage write protect, ``PAGE_IS_WRITTEN`` is + specified in ``required_mask`` and ``return_mask``. In addition to + specifying the output buffer in ``vec`` and length in ``vec_len``, the + ``PM_SCAN_OP_WP`` is specified in ``flags`` to perform write protect + on the range as well. + +The ``PAGE_IS_WRITTEN`` flag can be considered as the better and correct +alternative of soft-dirty flag. It doesn't get affected by housekeeping chores +(VMA merging) of the kernel and hence the user can find the true soft-dirty pages +only. This IOCTL adds the atomic way to find which pages have been written and +write protect those pages again. This kind of operation is needed to efficiently +find out which pages have changed in the memory. + +To get information about which pages have been written to or optionally write +protect the pages, following must be performed first in order: + 1. The userfaultfd file descriptor is created with ``userfaultfd`` syscall. + 2. The ``UFFD_FEATURE_WP_UNPOPULATED`` and ``UFFD_FEATURE_WP_ASYNC`` features + are set by ``UFFDIO_API`` IOCTL. + 3. The memory range is registered with ``UFFDIO_REGISTER_MODE_WP`` mode + through ``UFFDIO_REGISTER`` IOCTL. + 4. Then any part of the registered memory or the whole memory region must + be write protected using ``PAGEMAP_SCAN`` IOCTL with flag ``PM_SCAN_OP_WP`` + or the ``UFFDIO_WRITEPROTECT`` IOCTL can be used. Both of these perform the + same operation. The former is better in terms of performance. + 5. Now the ``PAGEMAP_SCAN`` IOCTL can be used to either just find pages which + have been written to and/or optionally write protect the pages as well.