[PATCH v5] alloc_tag: expose boot-time compression configuration
From: Abhishek Bapat
Date: Wed Aug 05 2026 - 13:30:02 EST
Currently, userspace has limited visibility into the exact active
runtime state of memory allocation profiling and its page extension
compression ('sysctl.vm.mem_profiling={0|1|never}[,compressed]').
While reading the sysctl provides basic on/off status, it is currently
impossible for userspace to natively determine whether page-tag
compression was successfully enabled without scraping dmesg boot logs.
Add a new read-only sysctl representing how compression was configured
at boot time.
Signed-off-by: Abhishek Bapat <abhishekbapat@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
v5 change:
- More documentation and commit message refactoring.
v4 change:
- Documentation and commit message refactor.
v3 change:
- Added documentation about the behaviour details of the new sysctl.
v2 change:
- Moved from displaying the state in /proc/allocinfo to a new read-only
sysctl.
Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst | 11 +++++++++++
mm/alloc_tag.c | 6 ++++++
2 files changed, 17 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst b/Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst
index c3a28467955f..b2ebcef8af6f 100644
--- a/Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst
+++ b/Documentation/mm/allocation-profiling.rst
@@ -43,6 +43,17 @@ sysctl:
warnings produced by allocations made while profiling is disabled and freed
when it's enabled.
+ /proc/sys/vm/mem_profiling_compressed
+
+ 1: Page alloc tag compression is enabled.
+
+ 0: Page alloc tag compression is disabled.
+
+ This reflects a static boot-time configuration of how page allocation tags are
+ stored (in page flags when compression is enabled and in page_ext when disabled).
+ Toggling ``mem_profiling`` at runtime does not change the state of
+ ``mem_profiling_compressed``.
+
Runtime info:
/proc/allocinfo
diff --git a/mm/alloc_tag.c b/mm/alloc_tag.c
index 84c5c3783ca4..b33410310477 100644
--- a/mm/alloc_tag.c
+++ b/mm/alloc_tag.c
@@ -1303,6 +1303,12 @@ static const struct ctl_table memory_allocation_profiling_sysctls[] = {
.mode = 0644,
.proc_handler = proc_mem_profiling_handler,
},
+ {
+ .procname = "mem_profiling_compressed",
+ .data = &mem_profiling_compressed,
+ .mode = 0444,
+ .proc_handler = proc_do_static_key,
+ },
};
static void __init sysctl_init(void)
base-commit: a946fa1d96648b92c9f37f0488e0e47a85f9e235
--
2.55.0.508.g3f0d502094-goog