regarding mem_map in NUMA

From: Om.Turyx
Date: Sun Jul 09 2006 - 18:06:39 EST


Hi,
While going through Mel gorman's book, I read that mem_map for NUMA
systems is treated as a virtual array at PAGE_OFFSET. I could understand the the explanation as follows.

mem_map[pfn] should not be accessed as it is. calculate the actual
node corresponding to pfn and access the page as
pglist_data[A]->node_zonelists[B]->zone_mem_map[C], where,
A : node_id, calculated using pfn,
B : offset in the zonelist calculated using pfn and,
C : offset in the local mem_map calculated using pfn.

Searching google resulted in http://lwn.net/Articles/9188/ Under other memory management work, it states mem_map[x] is not recommended in NUMA. Instead pfn_to_page() must be used.
from include/asm-i386/mmzone.h,
#define pfn_to_page(pfn) \
({\
unsigned long __pfn = pfn;\
int __node = pfn_to_nid(__pfn);\
&NODE_DATA(__node)->node_mem_map[node_localnr(__pfn,__node)];\
})
Means, pfn is used to traverse nodeid, and node_mem_map.
But even now I have not found where mem_map is initialized to PAGE_OFFSET, neither the significance of it.

Now, why should the mem_map be initialized to PAGE_OFFSET? Where is it
done? In page_alloc.c, I found mem_map = NODE_DATA(0)->node_mem_map;
when CONFIG_FLAT_NODE_MEM_MAP is defined (non numa case). If my
understanding is correct, this case should hold for NUMA as well.


Regards,
Om.
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/