Re: [RFC] Tagging of vmalloc pages for supporting the pmalloc allocator

[Igor Stoppa]

On 03/08/17 18:15, Michal Hocko wrote:

> I would check the one where we have mapping. It is rather unlikely
> vmalloc users would touch this one.

That was also the initial recommendation from Jerome Glisse, but it
seemed unusable, because of the related comment.

I should have asked for clarifications back then :-(

But it's never too late ...


struct page {
  /* First double word block */
  unsigned long flags;		/* Atomic flags, some possibly
				 * updated asynchronously */
union {
	struct address_space *mapping;	/* If low bit clear, points to
					 * inode address_space, or NULL.
					 * If page mapped as anonymous
					 * memory, low bit is set, and
					 * it points to anon_vma object:
					 * see PAGE_MAPPING_ANON below.
					 */
...
}

mapping seems to be used exclusively in 2 ways, based on the value of
its lower bit.

Therefore I discarded it as valid option ("private", otoh was far more
alluring), but maybe I could wrap it inside a union, together with vm_area?

---
thanks, igor