Re: [PATCH 2/2] mm: add a field to store names for private anonymous memory

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On 07/12/2013 05:34 AM, Colin Cross wrote:
Userspace processes often have multiple allocators that each do
anonymous mmaps to get memory.  When examining memory usage of
individual processes or systems as a whole, it is useful to be
able to break down the various heaps that were allocated by
each layer and examine their size, RSS, and physical memory
usage.

This patch adds a user pointer to the shared union in
vm_area_struct that points to a null terminated string inside
the user process containing a name for the vma.  vmas that
point to the same address will be merged, but vmas that
point to equivalent strings at different addresses will
not be merged.

Userspace can set the name for a region of memory by calling
prctl(PR_SET_VMA, PR_SET_VMA_ANON_NAME, start, len, (unsigned long)name);
Setting the name to NULL clears it.

The names of named anonymous vmas are shown in /proc/pid/maps
as [anon:<name>] and in /proc/pid/smaps in a new "Name" field
that is only present for named vmas.  If the userspace pointer
is no longer valid all or part of the name will be replaced
with "<fault>".

The idea to store a userspace pointer to reduce the complexity
within mm (at the expense of the complexity of reading
/proc/pid/mem) came from Dave Hansen.  This results in no
runtime overhead in the mm subsystem other than comparing
the anon_name pointers when considering vma merging.  The pointer
is stored in a union with fieds that are only used on file-backed
mappings, so it does not increase memory usage.

Signed-off-by: Colin Cross <ccross@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Ingo, PeterZ, is this something worthwhile for replacing our
current JIT symbol hack with perf?

			Pekka

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