Merge tag 'docs-4.18' of git://git.lwn.net/linux

Pull documentation updates from Jonathan Corbet:
 "There's been a fair amount of work in the docs tree this time around,
  including:

   - Extensive RST conversions and organizational work in the
     memory-management docs thanks to Mike Rapoport.

   - An update of Documentation/features from Andrea Parri and a script
     to keep it updated.

   - Various LICENSES updates from Thomas, along with a script to check
     SPDX tags.

   - Work to fix dangling references to documentation files; this
     involved a fair number of one-liner comment changes outside of
     Documentation/

  ... and the usual list of documentation improvements, typo fixes, etc"

* tag 'docs-4.18' of git://git.lwn.net/linux: (103 commits)
  Documentation: document hung_task_panic kernel parameter
  docs/admin-guide/mm: add high level concepts overview
  docs/vm: move ksm and transhuge from "user" to "internals" section.
  docs: Use the kerneldoc comments for memalloc_no*()
  doc: document scope NOFS, NOIO APIs
  docs: update kernel versions and dates in tables
  docs/vm: transhuge: split userspace bits to admin-guide/mm/transhuge
  docs/vm: transhuge: minor updates
  docs/vm: transhuge: change sections order
  Documentation: arm: clean up Marvell Berlin family info
  Documentation: gpio: driver: Fix a typo and some odd grammar
  docs: ranoops.rst: fix location of ramoops.txt
  scripts/documentation-file-ref-check: rewrite it in perl with auto-fix mode
  docs: uio-howto.rst: use a code block to solve a warning
  mm, THP, doc: Add document for thp_swpout/thp_swpout_fallback
  w1: w1_io.c: fix a kernel-doc warning
  Documentation/process/posting: wrap text at 80 cols
  docs: admin-guide: add cgroup-v2 documentation
  Revert "Documentation/features/vm: Remove arch support status file for 'pte_special'"
  Documentation: refcount-vs-atomic: Update reference to LKMM doc.
  ...

1 files changed, 45 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/vm/page_frags.rst b/Documentation/vm/page_frags.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..637cc49d1b2f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/vm/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.