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author | 2023-02-21 18:24:12 -0800 | |
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committer | 2023-02-21 18:24:12 -0800 | |
commit | 5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2 (patch) | |
tree | cc5c2d0a898769fd59549594fedb3ee6f84e59a0 /Documentation/core-api/memory-allocation.rst | |
download | linux-5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2.tar.gz linux-5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2.zip |
Merge tag 'net-next-6.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net-nextgrafted
Pull networking updates from Jakub Kicinski:
"Core:
- Add dedicated kmem_cache for typical/small skb->head, avoid having
to access struct page at kfree time, and improve memory use.
- Introduce sysctl to set default RPS configuration for new netdevs.
- Define Netlink protocol specification format which can be used to
describe messages used by each family and auto-generate parsers.
Add tools for generating kernel data structures and uAPI headers.
- Expose all net/core sysctls inside netns.
- Remove 4s sleep in netpoll if carrier is instantly detected on
boot.
- Add configurable limit of MDB entries per port, and port-vlan.
- Continue populating drop reasons throughout the stack.
- Retire a handful of legacy Qdiscs and classifiers.
Protocols:
- Support IPv4 big TCP (TSO frames larger than 64kB).
- Add IP_LOCAL_PORT_RANGE socket option, to control local port range
on socket by socket basis.
- Track and report in procfs number of MPTCP sockets used.
- Support mixing IPv4 and IPv6 flows in the in-kernel MPTCP path
manager.
- IPv6: don't check net.ipv6.route.max_size and rely on garbage
collection to free memory (similarly to IPv4).
- Support Penultimate Segment Pop (PSP) flavor in SRv6 (RFC8986).
- ICMP: add per-rate limit counters.
- Add support for user scanning requests in ieee802154.
- Remove static WEP support.
- Support minimal Wi-Fi 7 Extremely High Throughput (EHT) rate
reporting.
- WiFi 7 EHT channel puncturing support (client & AP).
BPF:
- Add a rbtree data structure following the "next-gen data structure"
precedent set by recently added linked list, that is, by using
kfunc + kptr instead of adding a new BPF map type.
- Expose XDP hints via kfuncs with initial support for RX hash and
timestamp metadata.
- Add BPF_F_NO_TUNNEL_KEY extension to bpf_skb_set_tunnel_key to
better support decap on GRE tunnel devices not operating in collect
metadata.
- Improve x86 JIT's codegen for PROBE_MEM runtime error checks.
- Remove the need for trace_printk_lock for bpf_trace_printk and
bpf_trace_vprintk helpers.
- Extend libbpf's bpf_tracing.h support for tracing arguments of
kprobes/uprobes and syscall as a special case.
- Significantly reduce the search time for module symbols by
livepatch and BPF.
- Enable cpumasks to be used as kptrs, which is useful for tracing
programs tracking which tasks end up running on which CPUs in
different time intervals.
- Add support for BPF trampoline on s390x and riscv64.
- Add capability to export the XDP features supported by the NIC.
- Add __bpf_kfunc tag for marking kernel functions as kfuncs.
- Add cgroup.memory=nobpf kernel parameter option to disable BPF
memory accounting for container environments.
Netfilter:
- Remove the CLUSTERIP target. It has been marked as obsolete for
years, and we still have WARN splats wrt races of the out-of-band
/proc interface installed by this target.
- Add 'destroy' commands to nf_tables. They are identical to the
existing 'delete' commands, but do not return an error if the
referenced object (set, chain, rule...) did not exist.
Driver API:
- Improve cpumask_local_spread() locality to help NICs set the right
IRQ affinity on AMD platforms.
- Separate C22 and C45 MDIO bus transactions more clearly.
- Introduce new DCB table to control DSCP rewrite on egress.
- Support configuration of Physical Layer Collision Avoidance (PLCA)
Reconciliation Sublayer (RS) (802.3cg-2019). Modern version of
shared medium Ethernet.
- Support for MAC Merge layer (IEEE 802.3-2018 clause 99). Allowing
preemption of low priority frames by high priority frames.
- Add support for controlling MACSec offload using netlink SET.
- Rework devlink instance refcounts to allow registration and
de-registration under the instance lock. Split the code into
multiple files, drop some of the unnecessarily granular locks and
factor out common parts of netlink operation handling.
- Add TX frame aggregation parameters (for USB drivers).
- Add a new attr TCA_EXT_WARN_MSG to report TC (offload) warning
messages with notifications for debug.
- Allow offloading of UDP NEW connections via act_ct.
- Add support for per action HW stats in TC.
- Support hardware miss to TC action (continue processing in SW from
a specific point in the action chain).
- Warn if old Wireless Extension user space interface is used with
modern cfg80211/mac80211 drivers. Do not support Wireless
Extensions for Wi-Fi 7 devices at all. Everyone should switch to
using nl80211 interface instead.
- Improve the CAN bit timing configuration. Use extack to return
error messages directly to user space, update the SJW handling,
including the definition of a new default value that will benefit
CAN-FD controllers, by increasing their oscillator tolerance.
New hardware / drivers:
- Ethernet:
- nVidia BlueField-3 support (control traffic driver)
- Ethernet support for imx93 SoCs
- Motorcomm yt8531 gigabit Ethernet PHY
- onsemi NCN26000 10BASE-T1S PHY (with support for PLCA)
- Microchip LAN8841 PHY (incl. cable diagnostics and PTP)
- Amlogic gxl MDIO mux
- WiFi:
- RealTek RTL8188EU (rtl8xxxu)
- Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 devices (ath12k)
- CAN:
- Renesas R-Car V4H
Drivers:
- Bluetooth:
- Set Per Platform Antenna Gain (PPAG) for Intel controllers.
- Ethernet NICs:
- Intel (1G, igc):
- support TSN / Qbv / packet scheduling features of i226 model
- Intel (100G, ice):
- use GNSS subsystem instead of TTY
- multi-buffer XDP support
- extend support for GPIO pins to E823 devices
- nVidia/Mellanox:
- update the shared buffer configuration on PFC commands
- implement PTP adjphase function for HW offset control
- TC support for Geneve and GRE with VF tunnel offload
- more efficient crypto key management method
- multi-port eswitch support
- Netronome/Corigine:
- add DCB IEEE support
- support IPsec offloading for NFP3800
- Freescale/NXP (enetc):
- support XDP_REDIRECT for XDP non-linear buffers
- improve reconfig, avoid link flap and waiting for idle
- support MAC Merge layer
- Other NICs:
- sfc/ef100: add basic devlink support for ef100
- ionic: rx_push mode operation (writing descriptors via MMIO)
- bnxt: use the auxiliary bus abstraction for RDMA
- r8169: disable ASPM and reset bus in case of tx timeout
- cpsw: support QSGMII mode for J721e CPSW9G
- cpts: support pulse-per-second output
- ngbe: add an mdio bus driver
- usbnet: optimize usbnet_bh() by avoiding unnecessary queuing
- r8152: handle devices with FW with NCM support
- amd-xgbe: support 10Mbps, 2.5GbE speeds and rx-adaptation
- virtio-net: support multi buffer XDP
- virtio/vsock: replace virtio_vsock_pkt with sk_buff
- tsnep: XDP support
- Ethernet high-speed switches:
- nVidia/Mellanox (mlxsw):
- add support for latency TLV (in FW control messages)
- Microchip (sparx5):
- separate explicit and implicit traffic forwarding rules, make
the implicit rules always active
- add support for egress DSCP rewrite
- IS0 VCAP support (Ingress Classification)
- IS2 VCAP filters (protos, L3 addrs, L4 ports, flags, ToS
etc.)
- ES2 VCAP support (Egress Access Control)
- support for Per-Stream Filtering and Policing (802.1Q,
8.6.5.1)
- Ethernet embedded switches:
- Marvell (mv88e6xxx):
- add MAB (port auth) offload support
- enable PTP receive for mv88e6390
- NXP (ocelot):
- support MAC Merge layer
- support for the the vsc7512 internal copper phys
- Microchip:
- lan9303: convert to PHYLINK
- lan966x: support TC flower filter statistics
- lan937x: PTP support for KSZ9563/KSZ8563 and LAN937x
- lan937x: support Credit Based Shaper configuration
- ksz9477: support Energy Efficient Ethernet
- other:
- qca8k: convert to regmap read/write API, use bulk operations
- rswitch: Improve TX timestamp accuracy
- Intel WiFi (iwlwifi):
- EHT (Wi-Fi 7) rate reporting
- STEP equalizer support: transfer some STEP (connection to radio
on platforms with integrated wifi) related parameters from the
BIOS to the firmware.
- Qualcomm 802.11ax WiFi (ath11k):
- IPQ5018 support
- Fine Timing Measurement (FTM) responder role support
- channel 177 support
- MediaTek WiFi (mt76):
- per-PHY LED support
- mt7996: EHT (Wi-Fi 7) support
- Wireless Ethernet Dispatch (WED) reset support
- switch to using page pool allocator
- RealTek WiFi (rtw89):
- support new version of Bluetooth co-existance
- Mobile:
- rmnet: support TX aggregation"
* tag 'net-next-6.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net-next: (1872 commits)
page_pool: add a comment explaining the fragment counter usage
net: ethtool: fix __ethtool_dev_mm_supported() implementation
ethtool: pse-pd: Fix double word in comments
xsk: add linux/vmalloc.h to xsk.c
sefltests: netdevsim: wait for devlink instance after netns removal
selftest: fib_tests: Always cleanup before exit
net/mlx5e: Align IPsec ASO result memory to be as required by hardware
net/mlx5e: TC, Set CT miss to the specific ct action instance
net/mlx5e: Rename CHAIN_TO_REG to MAPPED_OBJ_TO_REG
net/mlx5: Refactor tc miss handling to a single function
net/mlx5: Kconfig: Make tc offload depend on tc skb extension
net/sched: flower: Support hardware miss to tc action
net/sched: flower: Move filter handle initialization earlier
net/sched: cls_api: Support hardware miss to tc action
net/sched: Rename user cookie and act cookie
sfc: fix builds without CONFIG_RTC_LIB
sfc: clean up some inconsistent indentings
net/mlx4_en: Introduce flexible array to silence overflow warning
net: lan966x: Fix possible deadlock inside PTP
net/ulp: Remove redundant ->clone() test in inet_clone_ulp().
...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/core-api/memory-allocation.rst')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/core-api/memory-allocation.rst | 176 |
1 files changed, 176 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/memory-allocation.rst b/Documentation/core-api/memory-allocation.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5954ddf6e --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/core-api/memory-allocation.rst @@ -0,0 +1,176 @@ +.. _memory_allocation: + +======================= +Memory Allocation Guide +======================= + +Linux provides a variety of APIs for memory allocation. You can +allocate small chunks using `kmalloc` or `kmem_cache_alloc` families, +large virtually contiguous areas using `vmalloc` and its derivatives, +or you can directly request pages from the page allocator with +`alloc_pages`. It is also possible to use more specialized allocators, +for instance `cma_alloc` or `zs_malloc`. + +Most of the memory allocation APIs use GFP flags to express how that +memory should be allocated. The GFP acronym stands for "get free +pages", the underlying memory allocation function. + +Diversity of the allocation APIs combined with the numerous GFP flags +makes the question "How should I allocate memory?" not that easy to +answer, although very likely you should use + +:: + + kzalloc(<size>, GFP_KERNEL); + +Of course there are cases when other allocation APIs and different GFP +flags must be used. + +Get Free Page flags +=================== + +The GFP flags control the allocators behavior. They tell what memory +zones can be used, how hard the allocator should try to find free +memory, whether the memory can be accessed by the userspace etc. The +:ref:`Documentation/core-api/mm-api.rst <mm-api-gfp-flags>` provides +reference documentation for the GFP flags and their combinations and +here we briefly outline their recommended usage: + + * Most of the time ``GFP_KERNEL`` is what you need. Memory for the + kernel data structures, DMAable memory, inode cache, all these and + many other allocations types can use ``GFP_KERNEL``. Note, that + using ``GFP_KERNEL`` implies ``GFP_RECLAIM``, which means that + direct reclaim may be triggered under memory pressure; the calling + context must be allowed to sleep. + * If the allocation is performed from an atomic context, e.g interrupt + handler, use ``GFP_NOWAIT``. This flag prevents direct reclaim and + IO or filesystem operations. Consequently, under memory pressure + ``GFP_NOWAIT`` allocation is likely to fail. Allocations which + have a reasonable fallback should be using ``GFP_NOWARN``. + * If you think that accessing memory reserves is justified and the kernel + will be stressed unless allocation succeeds, you may use ``GFP_ATOMIC``. + * Untrusted allocations triggered from userspace should be a subject + of kmem accounting and must have ``__GFP_ACCOUNT`` bit set. There + is the handy ``GFP_KERNEL_ACCOUNT`` shortcut for ``GFP_KERNEL`` + allocations that should be accounted. + * Userspace allocations should use either of the ``GFP_USER``, + ``GFP_HIGHUSER`` or ``GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE`` flags. The longer + the flag name the less restrictive it is. + + ``GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE`` does not require that allocated memory + will be directly accessible by the kernel and implies that the + data is movable. + + ``GFP_HIGHUSER`` means that the allocated memory is not movable, + but it is not required to be directly accessible by the kernel. An + example may be a hardware allocation that maps data directly into + userspace but has no addressing limitations. + + ``GFP_USER`` means that the allocated memory is not movable and it + must be directly accessible by the kernel. + +You may notice that quite a few allocations in the existing code +specify ``GFP_NOIO`` or ``GFP_NOFS``. Historically, they were used to +prevent recursion deadlocks caused by direct memory reclaim calling +back into the FS or IO paths and blocking on already held +resources. Since 4.12 the preferred way to address this issue is to +use new scope APIs described in +:ref:`Documentation/core-api/gfp_mask-from-fs-io.rst <gfp_mask_from_fs_io>`. + +Other legacy GFP flags are ``GFP_DMA`` and ``GFP_DMA32``. They are +used to ensure that the allocated memory is accessible by hardware +with limited addressing capabilities. So unless you are writing a +driver for a device with such restrictions, avoid using these flags. +And even with hardware with restrictions it is preferable to use +`dma_alloc*` APIs. + +GFP flags and reclaim behavior +------------------------------ +Memory allocations may trigger direct or background reclaim and it is +useful to understand how hard the page allocator will try to satisfy that +or another request. + + * ``GFP_KERNEL & ~__GFP_RECLAIM`` - optimistic allocation without _any_ + attempt to free memory at all. The most light weight mode which even + doesn't kick the background reclaim. Should be used carefully because it + might deplete the memory and the next user might hit the more aggressive + reclaim. + + * ``GFP_KERNEL & ~__GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM`` (or ``GFP_NOWAIT``)- optimistic + allocation without any attempt to free memory from the current + context but can wake kswapd to reclaim memory if the zone is below + the low watermark. Can be used from either atomic contexts or when + the request is a performance optimization and there is another + fallback for a slow path. + + * ``(GFP_KERNEL|__GFP_HIGH) & ~__GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM`` (aka ``GFP_ATOMIC``) - + non sleeping allocation with an expensive fallback so it can access + some portion of memory reserves. Usually used from interrupt/bottom-half + context with an expensive slow path fallback. + + * ``GFP_KERNEL`` - both background and direct reclaim are allowed and the + **default** page allocator behavior is used. That means that not costly + allocation requests are basically no-fail but there is no guarantee of + that behavior so failures have to be checked properly by callers + (e.g. OOM killer victim is allowed to fail currently). + + * ``GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NORETRY`` - overrides the default allocator behavior + and all allocation requests fail early rather than cause disruptive + reclaim (one round of reclaim in this implementation). The OOM killer + is not invoked. + + * ``GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL`` - overrides the default allocator + behavior and all allocation requests try really hard. The request + will fail if the reclaim cannot make any progress. The OOM killer + won't be triggered. + + * ``GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOFAIL`` - overrides the default allocator behavior + and all allocation requests will loop endlessly until they succeed. + This might be really dangerous especially for larger orders. + +Selecting memory allocator +========================== + +The most straightforward way to allocate memory is to use a function +from the kmalloc() family. And, to be on the safe side it's best to use +routines that set memory to zero, like kzalloc(). If you need to +allocate memory for an array, there are kmalloc_array() and kcalloc() +helpers. The helpers struct_size(), array_size() and array3_size() can +be used to safely calculate object sizes without overflowing. + +The maximal size of a chunk that can be allocated with `kmalloc` is +limited. The actual limit depends on the hardware and the kernel +configuration, but it is a good practice to use `kmalloc` for objects +smaller than page size. + +The address of a chunk allocated with `kmalloc` is aligned to at least +ARCH_KMALLOC_MINALIGN bytes. For sizes which are a power of two, the +alignment is also guaranteed to be at least the respective size. + +Chunks allocated with kmalloc() can be resized with krealloc(). Similarly +to kmalloc_array(): a helper for resizing arrays is provided in the form of +krealloc_array(). + +For large allocations you can use vmalloc() and vzalloc(), or directly +request pages from the page allocator. The memory allocated by `vmalloc` +and related functions is not physically contiguous. + +If you are not sure whether the allocation size is too large for +`kmalloc`, it is possible to use kvmalloc() and its derivatives. It will +try to allocate memory with `kmalloc` and if the allocation fails it +will be retried with `vmalloc`. There are restrictions on which GFP +flags can be used with `kvmalloc`; please see kvmalloc_node() reference +documentation. Note that `kvmalloc` may return memory that is not +physically contiguous. + +If you need to allocate many identical objects you can use the slab +cache allocator. The cache should be set up with kmem_cache_create() or +kmem_cache_create_usercopy() before it can be used. The second function +should be used if a part of the cache might be copied to the userspace. +After the cache is created kmem_cache_alloc() and its convenience +wrappers can allocate memory from that cache. + +When the allocated memory is no longer needed it must be freed. You can +use kvfree() for the memory allocated with `kmalloc`, `vmalloc` and +`kvmalloc`. The slab caches should be freed with kmem_cache_free(). And +don't forget to destroy the cache with kmem_cache_destroy(). |