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diff --git a/Documentation/mm/page_frags.rst b/Documentation/mm/page_frags.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7d6f9385d --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/mm/page_frags.rst @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +.. _page_frags: + +============== +Page fragments +============== + +A page fragment is an arbitrary-length arbitrary-offset area of memory +which resides within a 0 or higher order compound page. Multiple +fragments within that page are individually refcounted, in the page's +reference counter. + +The page_frag functions, page_frag_alloc and page_frag_free, provide a +simple allocation framework for page fragments. This is used by the +network stack and network device drivers to provide a backing region of +memory for use as either an sk_buff->head, or to be used in the "frags" +portion of skb_shared_info. + +In order to make use of the page fragment APIs a backing page fragment +cache is needed. This provides a central point for the fragment allocation +and tracks allows multiple calls to make use of a cached page. The +advantage to doing this is that multiple calls to get_page can be avoided +which can be expensive at allocation time. However due to the nature of +this caching it is required that any calls to the cache be protected by +either a per-cpu limitation, or a per-cpu limitation and forcing interrupts +to be disabled when executing the fragment allocation. + +The network stack uses two separate caches per CPU to handle fragment +allocation. The netdev_alloc_cache is used by callers making use of the +netdev_alloc_frag and __netdev_alloc_skb calls. The napi_alloc_cache is +used by callers of the __napi_alloc_frag and __napi_alloc_skb calls. The +main difference between these two calls is the context in which they may be +called. The "netdev" prefixed functions are usable in any context as these +functions will disable interrupts, while the "napi" prefixed functions are +only usable within the softirq context. + +Many network device drivers use a similar methodology for allocating page +fragments, but the page fragments are cached at the ring or descriptor +level. In order to enable these cases it is necessary to provide a generic +way of tearing down a page cache. For this reason __page_frag_cache_drain +was implemented. It allows for freeing multiple references from a single +page via a single call. The advantage to doing this is that it allows for +cleaning up the multiple references that were added to a page in order to +avoid calling get_page per allocation. + +Alexander Duyck, Nov 29, 2016. |