[PATCH v2 0/2] mm/vmalloc: free unused pages on vrealloc() shrink
From: Shivam Kalra via B4 Relay
Date: Wed Mar 04 2026 - 10:03:53 EST
This series implements the TODO in vrealloc() to unmap and free unused
pages when shrinking across a page boundary.
Problem:
When vrealloc() shrinks an allocation, it updates bookkeeping
(requested_size, KASAN shadow) but does not free the underlying physical
pages. This wastes memory for the lifetime of the allocation.
Solution:
- Patch 1: Extracts a vmalloc_free_pages(vm, start, end) helper from
vfree() that frees a range of pages with memcg and nr_vmalloc_pages
accounting. Pure refactor, no functional change.
- Patch 2: Uses the helper to free tail pages when vrealloc() shrinks
across a page boundary. Skips huge page allocations (page_order > 0)
since compound pages cannot be partially freed. Also fixes the
grow-in-place path to check vm->nr_pages instead of
get_vm_area_size(), which reflects the virtual reservation and does
not change on shrink.
The virtual address reservation is kept intact to preserve the range
for potential future grow-in-place support.
A concrete user is the Rust binder driver's KVVec::shrink_to [1], which
performs explicit vrealloc() shrinks for memory reclamation.
Tested:
- KASAN KUnit (vmalloc_oob passes)
- lib/test_vmalloc stress tests (3/3, 1M iterations each)
- checkpatch, sparse, W=1, allmodconfig, coccicheck clean
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260216-binder-shrink-vec-v3-v6-0-ece8e8593e53@xxxxxxxxxxx/
Signed-off-by: Shivam Kalra <shivamkalra98@xxxxxxxxxxx>
---
Changes in v2:
- Updated the base-commit to mm-new
- Fix conflicts after rebase
- Ran `clang-format` on the changes made
- Use a single `kasan_vrealloc` (Alice Ryhl)
- Link to v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260302-vmalloc-shrink-v1-0-46deff465b7e@xxxxxxxxxxx
---
Shivam Kalra (2):
mm/vmalloc: extract vmalloc_free_pages() helper from vfree()
mm/vmalloc: free unused pages on vrealloc() shrink
mm/vmalloc.c | 61 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------------
1 file changed, 42 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: 2bff1816949a0849a384ed3cc66c8385d9590861
change-id: 20260302-vmalloc-shrink-04b2fa688a14
Best regards,
--
Shivam Kalra <shivamkalra98@xxxxxxxxxxx>