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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000
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+.. _pagemap:
+
+=============================
+Examining Process Page Tables
+=============================
+
+pagemap is a new (as of 2.6.25) set of interfaces in the kernel that allow
+userspace programs to examine the page tables and related information by
+reading files in ``/proc``.
+
+There are four components to pagemap:
+
+ * ``/proc/pid/pagemap``. This file lets a userspace process find out which
+ physical frame each virtual page is mapped to. It contains one 64-bit
+ value for each virtual page, containing the following data (from
+ ``fs/proc/task_mmu.c``, above pagemap_read):
+
+ * Bits 0-54 page frame number (PFN) if present
+ * Bits 0-4 swap type if swapped
+ * Bits 5-54 swap offset if swapped
+ * Bit 55 pte is soft-dirty (see
+ :ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/mm/soft-dirty.rst <soft_dirty>`)
+ * Bit 56 page exclusively mapped (since 4.2)
+ * Bits 57-60 zero
+ * Bit 61 page is file-page or shared-anon (since 3.5)
+ * Bit 62 page swapped
+ * Bit 63 page present
+
+ Since Linux 4.0 only users with the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability can get PFNs.
+ In 4.0 and 4.1 opens by unprivileged fail with -EPERM. Starting from
+ 4.2 the PFN field is zeroed if the user does not have CAP_SYS_ADMIN.
+ Reason: information about PFNs helps in exploiting Rowhammer vulnerability.
+
+ If the page is not present but in swap, then the PFN contains an
+ encoding of the swap file number and the page's offset into the
+ swap. Unmapped pages return a null PFN. This allows determining
+ precisely which pages are mapped (or in swap) and comparing mapped
+ pages between processes.
+
+ Efficient users of this interface will use ``/proc/pid/maps`` to
+ determine which areas of memory are actually mapped and llseek to
+ skip over unmapped regions.
+
+ * ``/proc/kpagecount``. This file contains a 64-bit count of the number of
+ times each page is mapped, indexed by PFN.
+
+The page-types tool in the tools/vm directory can be used to query the
+number of times a page is mapped.
+
+ * ``/proc/kpageflags``. This file contains a 64-bit set of flags for each
+ page, indexed by PFN.
+
+ The flags are (from ``fs/proc/page.c``, above kpageflags_read):
+
+ 0. LOCKED
+ 1. ERROR
+ 2. REFERENCED
+ 3. UPTODATE
+ 4. DIRTY
+ 5. LRU
+ 6. ACTIVE
+ 7. SLAB
+ 8. WRITEBACK
+ 9. RECLAIM
+ 10. BUDDY
+ 11. MMAP
+ 12. ANON
+ 13. SWAPCACHE
+ 14. SWAPBACKED
+ 15. COMPOUND_HEAD
+ 16. COMPOUND_TAIL
+ 17. HUGE
+ 18. UNEVICTABLE
+ 19. HWPOISON
+ 20. NOPAGE
+ 21. KSM
+ 22. THP
+ 23. OFFLINE
+ 24. ZERO_PAGE
+ 25. IDLE
+ 26. PGTABLE
+
+ * ``/proc/kpagecgroup``. This file contains a 64-bit inode number of the
+ memory cgroup each page is charged to, indexed by PFN. Only available when
+ CONFIG_MEMCG is set.
+
+Short descriptions to the page flags
+====================================
+
+0 - LOCKED
+ page is being locked for exclusive access, e.g. by undergoing read/write IO
+7 - SLAB
+ page is managed by the SLAB/SLOB/SLUB/SLQB kernel memory allocator
+ When compound page is used, SLUB/SLQB will only set this flag on the head
+ page; SLOB will not flag it at all.
+10 - BUDDY
+ a free memory block managed by the buddy system allocator
+ The buddy system organizes free memory in blocks of various orders.
+ An order N block has 2^N physically contiguous pages, with the BUDDY flag
+ set for and _only_ for the first page.
+15 - COMPOUND_HEAD
+ A compound page with order N consists of 2^N physically contiguous pages.
+ A compound page with order 2 takes the form of "HTTT", where H donates its
+ head page and T donates its tail page(s). The major consumers of compound
+ pages are hugeTLB pages
+ (:ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/mm/hugetlbpage.rst <hugetlbpage>`),
+ the SLUB etc. memory allocators and various device drivers.
+ However in this interface, only huge/giga pages are made visible
+ to end users.
+16 - COMPOUND_TAIL
+ A compound page tail (see description above).
+17 - HUGE
+ this is an integral part of a HugeTLB page
+19 - HWPOISON
+ hardware detected memory corruption on this page: don't touch the data!
+20 - NOPAGE
+ no page frame exists at the requested address
+21 - KSM
+ identical memory pages dynamically shared between one or more processes
+22 - THP
+ contiguous pages which construct transparent hugepages
+23 - OFFLINE
+ page is logically offline
+24 - ZERO_PAGE
+ zero page for pfn_zero or huge_zero page
+25 - IDLE
+ page has not been accessed since it was marked idle (see
+ :ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/mm/idle_page_tracking.rst <idle_page_tracking>`).
+ Note that this flag may be stale in case the page was accessed via
+ a PTE. To make sure the flag is up-to-date one has to read
+ ``/sys/kernel/mm/page_idle/bitmap`` first.
+26 - PGTABLE
+ page is in use as a page table
+
+IO related page flags
+---------------------
+
+1 - ERROR
+ IO error occurred
+3 - UPTODATE
+ page has up-to-date data
+ ie. for file backed page: (in-memory data revision >= on-disk one)
+4 - DIRTY
+ page has been written to, hence contains new data
+ i.e. for file backed page: (in-memory data revision > on-disk one)
+8 - WRITEBACK
+ page is being synced to disk
+
+LRU related page flags
+----------------------
+
+5 - LRU
+ page is in one of the LRU lists
+6 - ACTIVE
+ page is in the active LRU list
+18 - UNEVICTABLE
+ page is in the unevictable (non-)LRU list It is somehow pinned and
+ not a candidate for LRU page reclaims, e.g. ramfs pages,
+ shmctl(SHM_LOCK) and mlock() memory segments
+2 - REFERENCED
+ page has been referenced since last LRU list enqueue/requeue
+9 - RECLAIM
+ page will be reclaimed soon after its pageout IO completed
+11 - MMAP
+ a memory mapped page
+12 - ANON
+ a memory mapped page that is not part of a file
+13 - SWAPCACHE
+ page is mapped to swap space, i.e. has an associated swap entry
+14 - SWAPBACKED
+ page is backed by swap/RAM
+
+The page-types tool in the tools/vm directory can be used to query the
+above flags.
+
+Using pagemap to do something useful
+====================================
+
+The general procedure for using pagemap to find out about a process' memory
+usage goes like this:
+
+ 1. Read ``/proc/pid/maps`` to determine which parts of the memory space are
+ mapped to what.
+ 2. Select the maps you are interested in -- all of them, or a particular
+ library, or the stack or the heap, etc.
+ 3. Open ``/proc/pid/pagemap`` and seek to the pages you would like to examine.
+ 4. Read a u64 for each page from pagemap.
+ 5. Open ``/proc/kpagecount`` and/or ``/proc/kpageflags``. For each PFN you
+ just read, seek to that entry in the file, and read the data you want.
+
+For example, to find the "unique set size" (USS), which is the amount of
+memory that a process is using that is not shared with any other process,
+you can go through every map in the process, find the PFNs, look those up
+in kpagecount, and tally up the number of pages that are only referenced
+once.
+
+Other notes
+===========
+
+Reading from any of the files will return -EINVAL if you are not starting
+the read on an 8-byte boundary (e.g., if you sought an odd number of bytes
+into the file), or if the size of the read is not a multiple of 8 bytes.
+
+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.