docs/vm: move numa_memory_policy.rst to Documentation/admin-guide/mm

The document describes userspace API and as such it belongs to
Documentation/admin-guide/mm

Signed-off-by: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

3 files changed, 497 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/hugetlbpage.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/hugetlbpage.rst
index a8b0806377bb..1cc0bc78d10e 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/hugetlbpage.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/hugetlbpage.rst
@@ -220,7 +220,7 @@ memory policy mode--bind, preferred, local or interleave--may be used.  The
 resulting effect on persistent huge page allocation is as follows:
 
 #. Regardless of mempolicy mode [see
-   :ref:`Documentation/vm/numa_memory_policy.rst <numa_memory_policy>`],
+   :ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/mm/numa_memory_policy.rst <numa_memory_policy>`],
    persistent huge pages will be distributed across the node or nodes
    specified in the mempolicy as if "interleave" had been specified.
    However, if a node in the policy does not contain sufficient contiguous
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
index ad28644fee35..a69aa69af255 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/index.rst
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ the Linux memory management.
    hugetlbpage
    idle_page_tracking
    ksm
+   numa_memory_policy
    pagemap
    soft-dirty
    userfaultfd
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/numa_memory_policy.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/numa_memory_policy.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..d78c5b315f72
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/numa_memory_policy.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,495 @@
+.. _numa_memory_policy:
+
+==================
+NUMA Memory Policy
+==================
+
+What is NUMA Memory Policy?
+============================
+
+In the Linux kernel, "memory policy" determines from which node the kernel will
+allocate memory in a NUMA system or in an emulated NUMA system.  Linux has
+supported platforms with Non-Uniform Memory Access architectures since 2.4.?.
+The current memory policy support was added to Linux 2.6 around May 2004.  This
+document attempts to describe the concepts and APIs of the 2.6 memory policy
+support.
+
+Memory policies should not be confused with cpusets
+(``Documentation/cgroup-v1/cpusets.txt``)
+which is an administrative mechanism for restricting the nodes from which
+memory may be allocated by a set of processes. Memory policies are a
+programming interface that a NUMA-aware application can take advantage of.  When
+both cpusets and policies are applied to a task, the restrictions of the cpuset
+takes priority.  See :ref:`Memory Policies and cpusets <mem_pol_and_cpusets>`
+below for more details.
+
+Memory Policy Concepts
+======================
+
+Scope of Memory Policies
+------------------------
+
+The Linux kernel supports _scopes_ of memory policy, described here from
+most general to most specific:
+
+System Default Policy
+	this policy is "hard coded" into the kernel.  It is the policy
+	that governs all page allocations that aren't controlled by
+	one of the more specific policy scopes discussed below.  When
+	the system is "up and running", the system default policy will
+	use "local allocation" described below.  However, during boot
+	up, the system default policy will be set to interleave
+	allocations across all nodes with "sufficient" memory, so as
+	not to overload the initial boot node with boot-time
+	allocations.
+
+Task/Process Policy
+	this is an optional, per-task policy.  When defined for a
+	specific task, this policy controls all page allocations made
+	by or on behalf of the task that aren't controlled by a more
+	specific scope. If a task does not define a task policy, then
+	all page allocations that would have been controlled by the
+	task policy "fall back" to the System Default Policy.
+
+	The task policy applies to the entire address space of a task. Thus,
+	it is inheritable, and indeed is inherited, across both fork()
+	[clone() w/o the CLONE_VM flag] and exec*().  This allows a parent task
+	to establish the task policy for a child task exec()'d from an
+	executable image that has no awareness of memory policy.  See the
+	:ref:`Memory Policy APIs <memory_policy_apis>` section,
+	below, for an overview of the system call
+	that a task may use to set/change its task/process policy.
+
+	In a multi-threaded task, task policies apply only to the thread
+	[Linux kernel task] that installs the policy and any threads
+	subsequently created by that thread.  Any sibling threads existing
+	at the time a new task policy is installed retain their current
+	policy.
+
+	A task policy applies only to pages allocated after the policy is
+	installed.  Any pages already faulted in by the task when the task
+	changes its task policy remain where they were allocated based on
+	the policy at the time they were allocated.
+
+.. _vma_policy:
+
+VMA Policy
+	A "VMA" or "Virtual Memory Area" refers to a range of a task's
+	virtual address space.  A task may define a specific policy for a range
+	of its virtual address space.   See the
+	:ref:`Memory Policy APIs <memory_policy_apis>` section,
+	below, for an overview of the mbind() system call used to set a VMA
+	policy.
+
+	A VMA policy will govern the allocation of pages that back
+	this region of the address space.  Any regions of the task's
+	address space that don't have an explicit VMA policy will fall
+	back to the task policy, which may itself fall back to the
+	System Default Policy.
+
+	VMA policies have a few complicating details:
+
+	* VMA policy applies ONLY to anonymous pages.  These include
+	  pages allocated for anonymous segments, such as the task
+	  stack and heap, and any regions of the address space
+	  mmap()ed with the MAP_ANONYMOUS flag.  If a VMA policy is
+	  applied to a file mapping, it will be ignored if the mapping
+	  used the MAP_SHARED flag.  If the file mapping used the
+	  MAP_PRIVATE flag, the VMA policy will only be applied when
+	  an anonymous page is allocated on an attempt to write to the
+	  mapping-- i.e., at Copy-On-Write.
+
+	* VMA policies are shared between all tasks that share a
+	  virtual address space--a.k.a. threads--independent of when
+	  the policy is installed; and they are inherited across
+	  fork().  However, because VMA policies refer to a specific
+	  region of a task's address space, and because the address
+	  space is discarded and recreated on exec*(), VMA policies
+	  are NOT inheritable across exec().  Thus, only NUMA-aware
+	  applications may use VMA policies.
+
+	* A task may install a new VMA policy on a sub-range of a
+	  previously mmap()ed region.  When this happens, Linux splits
+	  the existing virtual memory area into 2 or 3 VMAs, each with
+	  it's own policy.
+
+	* By default, VMA policy applies only to pages allocated after
+	  the policy is installed.  Any pages already faulted into the
+	  VMA range remain where they were allocated based on the
+	  policy at the time they were allocated.  However, since
+	  2.6.16, Linux supports page migration via the mbind() system
+	  call, so that page contents can be moved to match a newly
+	  installed policy.
+
+Shared Policy
+	Conceptually, shared policies apply to "memory objects" mapped
+	shared into one or more tasks' distinct address spaces.  An
+	application installs shared policies the same way as VMA
+	policies--using the mbind() system call specifying a range of
+	virtual addresses that map the shared object.  However, unlike
+	VMA policies, which can be considered to be an attribute of a
+	range of a task's address space, shared policies apply
+	directly to the shared object.  Thus, all tasks that attach to
+	the object share the policy, and all pages allocated for the
+	shared object, by any task, will obey the shared policy.
+
+	As of 2.6.22, only shared memory segments, created by shmget() or
+	mmap(MAP_ANONYMOUS|MAP_SHARED), support shared policy.  When shared
+	policy support was added to Linux, the associated data structures were
+	added to hugetlbfs shmem segments.  At the time, hugetlbfs did not
+	support allocation at fault time--a.k.a lazy allocation--so hugetlbfs
+	shmem segments were never "hooked up" to the shared policy support.
+	Although hugetlbfs segments now support lazy allocation, their support
+	for shared policy has not been completed.
+
+	As mentioned above in :ref:`VMA policies <vma_policy>` section,
+	allocations of page cache pages for regular files mmap()ed
+	with MAP_SHARED ignore any VMA policy installed on the virtual
+	address range backed by the shared file mapping.  Rather,
+	shared page cache pages, including pages backing private
+	mappings that have not yet been written by the task, follow
+	task policy, if any, else System Default Policy.
+
+	The shared policy infrastructure supports different policies on subset
+	ranges of the shared object.  However, Linux still splits the VMA of
+	the task that installs the policy for each range of distinct policy.
+	Thus, different tasks that attach to a shared memory segment can have
+	different VMA configurations mapping that one shared object.  This
+	can be seen by examining the /proc/<pid>/numa_maps of tasks sharing
+	a shared memory region, when one task has installed shared policy on
+	one or more ranges of the region.
+
+Components of Memory Policies
+-----------------------------
+
+A NUMA memory policy consists of a "mode", optional mode flags, and
+an optional set of nodes.  The mode determines the behavior of the
+policy, the optional mode flags determine the behavior of the mode,
+and the optional set of nodes can be viewed as the arguments to the
+policy behavior.
+
+Internally, memory policies are implemented by a reference counted
+structure, struct mempolicy.  Details of this structure will be
+discussed in context, below, as required to explain the behavior.
+
+NUMA memory policy supports the following 4 behavioral modes:
+
+Default Mode--MPOL_DEFAULT
+	This mode is only used in the memory policy APIs.  Internally,
+	MPOL_DEFAULT is converted to the NULL memory policy in all
+	policy scopes.  Any existing non-default policy will simply be
+	removed when MPOL_DEFAULT is specified.  As a result,
+	MPOL_DEFAULT means "fall back to the next most specific policy
+	scope."
+
+	For example, a NULL or default task policy will fall back to the
+	system default policy.  A NULL or default vma policy will fall
+	back to the task policy.
+
+	When specified in one of the memory policy APIs, the Default mode
+	does not use the optional set of nodes.
+
+	It is an error for the set of nodes specified for this policy to
+	be non-empty.
+
+MPOL_BIND
+	This mode specifies that memory must come from the set of
+	nodes specified by the policy.  Memory will be allocated from
+	the node in the set with sufficient free memory that is
+	closest to the node where the allocation takes place.
+
+MPOL_PREFERRED
+	This mode specifies that the allocation should be attempted
+	from the single node specified in the policy.  If that
+	allocation fails, the kernel will search other nodes, in order
+	of increasing distance from the preferred node based on
+	information provided by the platform firmware.
+
+	Internally, the Preferred policy uses a single node--the
+	preferred_node member of struct mempolicy.  When the internal
+	mode flag MPOL_F_LOCAL is set, the preferred_node is ignored
+	and the policy is interpreted as local allocation.  "Local"
+	allocation policy can be viewed as a Preferred policy that
+	starts at the node containing the cpu where the allocation
+	takes place.
+
+	It is possible for the user to specify that local allocation
+	is always preferred by passing an empty nodemask with this
+	mode.  If an empty nodemask is passed, the policy cannot use
+	the MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES or MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES flags
+	described below.
+
+MPOL_INTERLEAVED
+	This mode specifies that page allocations be interleaved, on a
+	page granularity, across the nodes specified in the policy.
+	This mode also behaves slightly differently, based on the
+	context where it is used:
+
+	For allocation of anonymous pages and shared memory pages,
+	Interleave mode indexes the set of nodes specified by the
+	policy using the page offset of the faulting address into the
+	segment [VMA] containing the address modulo the number of
+	nodes specified by the policy.  It then attempts to allocate a
+	page, starting at the selected node, as if the node had been
+	specified by a Preferred policy or had been selected by a
+	local allocation.  That is, allocation will follow the per
+	node zonelist.
+
+	For allocation of page cache pages, Interleave mode indexes
+	the set of nodes specified by the policy using a node counter
+	maintained per task.  This counter wraps around to the lowest
+	specified node after it reaches the highest specified node.
+	This will tend to spread the pages out over the nodes
+	specified by the policy based on the order in which they are
+	allocated, rather than based on any page offset into an
+	address range or file.  During system boot up, the temporary
+	interleaved system default policy works in this mode.
+
+NUMA memory policy supports the following optional mode flags:
+
+MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES
+	This flag specifies that the nodemask passed by
+	the user should not be remapped if the task or VMA's set of allowed
+	nodes changes after the memory policy has been defined.
+
+	Without this flag, any time a mempolicy is rebound because of a
+	change in the set of allowed nodes, the node (Preferred) or
+	nodemask (Bind, Interleave) is remapped to the new set of
+	allowed nodes.  This may result in nodes being used that were
+	previously undesired.
+
+	With this flag, if the user-specified nodes overlap with the
+	nodes allowed by the task's cpuset, then the memory policy is
+	applied to their intersection.  If the two sets of nodes do not
+	overlap, the Default policy is used.
+
+	For example, consider a task that is attached to a cpuset with
+	mems 1-3 that sets an Interleave policy over the same set.  If
+	the cpuset's mems change to 3-5, the Interleave will now occur
+	over nodes 3, 4, and 5.  With this flag, however, since only node
+	3 is allowed from the user's nodemask, the "interleave" only
+	occurs over that node.  If no nodes from the user's nodemask are
+	now allowed, the Default behavior is used.
+
+	MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES cannot be combined with the
+	MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES flag.  It also cannot be used for
+	MPOL_PREFERRED policies that were created with an empty nodemask
+	(local allocation).
+
+MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES
+	This flag specifies that the nodemask passed
+	by the user will be mapped relative to the set of the task or VMA's
+	set of allowed nodes.  The kernel stores the user-passed nodemask,
+	and if the allowed nodes changes, then that original nodemask will
+	be remapped relative to the new set of allowed nodes.
+
+	Without this flag (and without MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES), anytime a
+	mempolicy is rebound because of a change in the set of allowed
+	nodes, the node (Preferred) or nodemask (Bind, Interleave) is
+	remapped to the new set of allowed nodes.  That remap may not
+	preserve the relative nature of the user's passed nodemask to its
+	set of allowed nodes upon successive rebinds: a nodemask of
+	1,3,5 may be remapped to 7-9 and then to 1-3 if the set of
+	allowed nodes is restored to its original state.
+
+	With this flag, the remap is done so that the node numbers from
+	the user's passed nodemask are relative to the set of allowed
+	nodes.  In other words, if nodes 0, 2, and 4 are set in the user's
+	nodemask, the policy will be effected over the first (and in the
+	Bind or Interleave case, the third and fifth) nodes in the set of
+	allowed nodes.  The nodemask passed by the user represents nodes
+	relative to task or VMA's set of allowed nodes.
+
+	If the user's nodemask includes nodes that are outside the range
+	of the new set of allowed nodes (for example, node 5 is set in
+	the user's nodemask when the set of allowed nodes is only 0-3),
+	then the remap wraps around to the beginning of the nodemask and,
+	if not already set, sets the node in the mempolicy nodemask.
+
+	For example, consider a task that is attached to a cpuset with
+	mems 2-5 that sets an Interleave policy over the same set with
+	MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES.  If the cpuset's mems change to 3-7, the
+	interleave now occurs over nodes 3,5-7.  If the cpuset's mems
+	then change to 0,2-3,5, then the interleave occurs over nodes
+	0,2-3,5.
+
+	Thanks to the consistent remapping, applications preparing
+	nodemasks to specify memory policies using this flag should
+	disregard their current, actual cpuset imposed memory placement
+	and prepare the nodemask as if they were always located on
+	memory nodes 0 to N-1, where N is the number of memory nodes the
+	policy is intended to manage.  Let the kernel then remap to the
+	set of memory nodes allowed by the task's cpuset, as that may
+	change over time.
+
+	MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES cannot be combined with the
+	MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES flag.  It also cannot be used for
+	MPOL_PREFERRED policies that were created with an empty nodemask
+	(local allocation).
+
+Memory Policy Reference Counting
+================================
+
+To resolve use/free races, struct mempolicy contains an atomic reference
+count field.  Internal interfaces, mpol_get()/mpol_put() increment and
+decrement this reference count, respectively.  mpol_put() will only free
+the structure back to the mempolicy kmem cache when the reference count
+goes to zero.
+
+When a new memory policy is allocated, its reference count is initialized
+to '1', representing the reference held by the task that is installing the
+new policy.  When a pointer to a memory policy structure is stored in another
+structure, another reference is added, as the task's reference will be dropped
+on completion of the policy installation.
+
+During run-time "usage" of the policy, we attempt to minimize atomic operations
+on the reference count, as this can lead to cache lines bouncing between cpus
+and NUMA nodes.  "Usage" here means one of the following:
+
+1) querying of the policy, either by the task itself [using the get_mempolicy()
+   API discussed below] or by another task using the /proc/<pid>/numa_maps
+   interface.
+
+2) examination of the policy to determine the policy mode and associated node
+   or node lists, if any, for page allocation.  This is considered a "hot
+   path".  Note that for MPOL_BIND, the "usage" extends across the entire
+   allocation process, which may sleep during page reclaimation, because the
+   BIND policy nodemask is used, by reference, to filter ineligible nodes.
+
+We can avoid taking an extra reference during the usages listed above as
+follows:
+
+1) we never need to get/free the system default policy as this is never
+   changed nor freed, once the system is up and running.
+
+2) for querying the policy, we do not need to take an extra reference on the
+   target task's task policy nor vma policies because we always acquire the
+   task's mm's mmap_sem for read during the query.  The set_mempolicy() and
+   mbind() APIs [see below] always acquire the mmap_sem for write when
+   installing or replacing task or vma policies.  Thus, there is no possibility
+   of a task or thread freeing a policy while another task or thread is
+   querying it.
+
+3) Page allocation usage of task or vma policy occurs in the fault path where
+   we hold them mmap_sem for read.  Again, because replacing the task or vma
+   policy requires that the mmap_sem be held for write, the policy can't be
+   freed out from under us while we're using it for page allocation.
+
+4) Shared policies require special consideration.  One task can replace a
+   shared memory policy while another task, with a distinct mmap_sem, is
+   querying or allocating a page based on the policy.  To resolve this
+   potential race, the shared policy infrastructure adds an extra reference
+   to the shared policy during lookup while holding a spin lock on the shared
+   policy management structure.  This requires that we drop this extra
+   reference when we're finished "using" the policy.  We must drop the
+   extra reference on shared policies in the same query/allocation paths
+   used for non-shared policies.  For this reason, shared policies are marked
+   as such, and the extra reference is dropped "conditionally"--i.e., only
+   for shared policies.
+
+   Because of this extra reference counting, and because we must lookup
+   shared policies in a tree structure under spinlock, shared policies are
+   more expensive to use in the page allocation path.  This is especially
+   true for shared policies on shared memory regions shared by tasks running
+   on different NUMA nodes.  This extra overhead can be avoided by always
+   falling back to task or system default policy for shared memory regions,
+   or by prefaulting the entire shared memory region into memory and locking
+   it down.  However, this might not be appropriate for all applications.
+
+.. _memory_policy_apis:
+
+Memory Policy APIs
+==================
+
+Linux supports 3 system calls for controlling memory policy.  These APIS
+always affect only the calling task, the calling task's address space, or
+some shared object mapped into the calling task's address space.
+
+.. note::
+   the headers that define these APIs and the parameter data types for
+   user space applications reside in a package that is not part of the
+   Linux kernel.  The kernel system call interfaces, with the 'sys\_'
+   prefix, are defined in <linux/syscalls.h>; the mode and flag
+   definitions are defined in <linux/mempolicy.h>.
+
+Set [Task] Memory Policy::
+
+	long set_mempolicy(int mode, const unsigned long *nmask,
+					unsigned long maxnode);
+
+Set's the calling task's "task/process memory policy" to mode
+specified by the 'mode' argument and the set of nodes defined by
+'nmask'.  'nmask' points to a bit mask of node ids containing at least
+'maxnode' ids.  Optional mode flags may be passed by combining the
+'mode' argument with the flag (for example: MPOL_INTERLEAVE |
+MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES).
+
+See the set_mempolicy(2) man page for more details
+
+
+Get [Task] Memory Policy or Related Information::
+
+	long get_mempolicy(int *mode,
+			   const unsigned long *nmask, unsigned long maxnode,
+			   void *addr, int flags);
+
+Queries the "task/process memory policy" of the calling task, or the
+policy or location of a specified virtual address, depending on the
+'flags' argument.
+
+See the get_mempolicy(2) man page for more details
+
+
+Install VMA/Shared Policy for a Range of Task's Address Space::
+
+	long mbind(void *start, unsigned long len, int mode,
+		   const unsigned long *nmask, unsigned long maxnode,
+		   unsigned flags);
+
+mbind() installs the policy specified by (mode, nmask, maxnodes) as a
+VMA policy for the range of the calling task's address space specified
+by the 'start' and 'len' arguments.  Additional actions may be
+requested via the 'flags' argument.
+
+See the mbind(2) man page for more details.
+
+Memory Policy Command Line Interface
+====================================
+
+Although not strictly part of the Linux implementation of memory policy,
+a command line tool, numactl(8), exists that allows one to:
+
++ set the task policy for a specified program via set_mempolicy(2), fork(2) and
+  exec(2)
+
++ set the shared policy for a shared memory segment via mbind(2)
+
+The numactl(8) tool is packaged with the run-time version of the library
+containing the memory policy system call wrappers.  Some distributions
+package the headers and compile-time libraries in a separate development
+package.
+
+.. _mem_pol_and_cpusets:
+
+Memory Policies and cpusets
+===========================
+
+Memory policies work within cpusets as described above.  For memory policies
+that require a node or set of nodes, the nodes are restricted to the set of
+nodes whose memories are allowed by the cpuset constraints.  If the nodemask
+specified for the policy contains nodes that are not allowed by the cpuset and
+MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES is not used, the intersection of the set of nodes
+specified for the policy and the set of nodes with memory is used.  If the
+result is the empty set, the policy is considered invalid and cannot be
+installed.  If MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES is used, the policy's nodes are mapped
+onto and folded into the task's set of allowed nodes as previously described.
+
+The interaction of memory policies and cpusets can be problematic when tasks
+in two cpusets share access to a memory region, such as shared memory segments
+created by shmget() of mmap() with the MAP_ANONYMOUS and MAP_SHARED flags, and
+any of the tasks install shared policy on the region, only nodes whose
+memories are allowed in both cpusets may be used in the policies.  Obtaining
+this information requires "stepping outside" the memory policy APIs to use the
+cpuset information and requires that one know in what cpusets other task might
+be attaching to the shared region.  Furthermore, if the cpusets' allowed
+memory sets are disjoint, "local" allocation is the only valid policy.