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1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
2
3===============
4Physical Memory
5===============
6
7Linux is available for a wide range of architectures so there is a need for an
8architecture-independent abstraction to represent the physical memory. This
9chapter describes the structures used to manage physical memory in a running
10system.
11
12The first principal concept prevalent in the memory management is
13`Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA)
14<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-uniform_memory_access>`_.
15With multi-core and multi-socket machines, memory may be arranged into banks
16that incur a different cost to access depending on the “distance” from the
17processor. For example, there might be a bank of memory assigned to each CPU or
18a bank of memory very suitable for DMA near peripheral devices.
19
20Each bank is called a node and the concept is represented under Linux by a
21``struct pglist_data`` even if the architecture is UMA. This structure is
22always referenced by its typedef ``pg_data_t``. A ``pg_data_t`` structure
23for a particular node can be referenced by ``NODE_DATA(nid)`` macro where
24``nid`` is the ID of that node.
25
26For NUMA architectures, the node structures are allocated by the architecture
27specific code early during boot. Usually, these structures are allocated
28locally on the memory bank they represent. For UMA architectures, only one
29static ``pg_data_t`` structure called ``contig_page_data`` is used. Nodes will
30be discussed further in Section :ref:`Nodes <nodes>`
31
32The entire physical address space is partitioned into one or more blocks
33called zones which represent ranges within memory. These ranges are usually
34determined by architectural constraints for accessing the physical memory.
35The memory range within a node that corresponds to a particular zone is
36described by a ``struct zone``. Each zone has
37one of the types described below.
38
39* ``ZONE_DMA`` and ``ZONE_DMA32`` historically represented memory suitable for
40 DMA by peripheral devices that cannot access all of the addressable
41 memory. For many years there are better more and robust interfaces to get
42 memory with DMA specific requirements (Documentation/core-api/dma-api.rst),
43 but ``ZONE_DMA`` and ``ZONE_DMA32`` still represent memory ranges that have
44 restrictions on how they can be accessed.
45 Depending on the architecture, either of these zone types or even they both
46 can be disabled at build time using ``CONFIG_ZONE_DMA`` and
47 ``CONFIG_ZONE_DMA32`` configuration options. Some 64-bit platforms may need
48 both zones as they support peripherals with different DMA addressing
49 limitations.
50
51* ``ZONE_NORMAL`` is for normal memory that can be accessed by the kernel all
52 the time. DMA operations can be performed on pages in this zone if the DMA
53 devices support transfers to all addressable memory. ``ZONE_NORMAL`` is
54 always enabled.
55
56* ``ZONE_HIGHMEM`` is the part of the physical memory that is not covered by a
57 permanent mapping in the kernel page tables. The memory in this zone is only
58 accessible to the kernel using temporary mappings. This zone is available
59 only on some 32-bit architectures and is enabled with ``CONFIG_HIGHMEM``.
60
61* ``ZONE_MOVABLE`` is for normal accessible memory, just like ``ZONE_NORMAL``.
62 The difference is that the contents of most pages in ``ZONE_MOVABLE`` is
63 movable. That means that while virtual addresses of these pages do not
64 change, their content may move between different physical pages. Often
65 ``ZONE_MOVABLE`` is populated during memory hotplug, but it may be
66 also populated on boot using one of ``kernelcore``, ``movablecore`` and
67 ``movable_node`` kernel command line parameters. See
68 Documentation/mm/page_migration.rst and
69 Documentation/admin-guide/mm/memory-hotplug.rst for additional details.
70
71* ``ZONE_DEVICE`` represents memory residing on devices such as PMEM and GPU.
72 It has different characteristics than RAM zone types and it exists to provide
73 :ref:`struct page <Pages>` and memory map services for device driver
74 identified physical address ranges. ``ZONE_DEVICE`` is enabled with
75 configuration option ``CONFIG_ZONE_DEVICE``.
76
77It is important to note that many kernel operations can only take place using
78``ZONE_NORMAL`` so it is the most performance critical zone. Zones are
79discussed further in Section :ref:`Zones <zones>`.
80
81The relation between node and zone extents is determined by the physical memory
82map reported by the firmware, architectural constraints for memory addressing
83and certain parameters in the kernel command line.
84
85For example, with 32-bit kernel on an x86 UMA machine with 2 Gbytes of RAM the
86entire memory will be on node 0 and there will be three zones: ``ZONE_DMA``,
87``ZONE_NORMAL`` and ``ZONE_HIGHMEM``::
88
89 0 2G
90 +-------------------------------------------------------------+
91 | node 0 |
92 +-------------------------------------------------------------+
93
94 0 16M 896M 2G
95 +----------+-----------------------+--------------------------+
96 | ZONE_DMA | ZONE_NORMAL | ZONE_HIGHMEM |
97 +----------+-----------------------+--------------------------+
98
99
100With a kernel built with ``ZONE_DMA`` disabled and ``ZONE_DMA32`` enabled and
101booted with ``movablecore=80%`` parameter on an arm64 machine with 16 Gbytes of
102RAM equally split between two nodes, there will be ``ZONE_DMA32``,
103``ZONE_NORMAL`` and ``ZONE_MOVABLE`` on node 0, and ``ZONE_NORMAL`` and
104``ZONE_MOVABLE`` on node 1::
105
106
107 1G 9G 17G
108 +--------------------------------+ +--------------------------+
109 | node 0 | | node 1 |
110 +--------------------------------+ +--------------------------+
111
112 1G 4G 4200M 9G 9320M 17G
113 +---------+----------+-----------+ +------------+-------------+
114 | DMA32 | NORMAL | MOVABLE | | NORMAL | MOVABLE |
115 +---------+----------+-----------+ +------------+-------------+
116
117
118Memory banks may belong to interleaving nodes. In the example below an x86
119machine has 16 Gbytes of RAM in 4 memory banks, even banks belong to node 0
120and odd banks belong to node 1::
121
122
123 0 4G 8G 12G 16G
124 +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+
125 | node 0 | | node 1 | | node 0 | | node 1 |
126 +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+
127
128 0 16M 4G
129 +-----+-------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+
130 | DMA | DMA32 | | NORMAL | | NORMAL | | NORMAL |
131 +-----+-------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+
132
133In this case node 0 will span from 0 to 12 Gbytes and node 1 will span from
1344 to 16 Gbytes.
135
136.. _nodes:
137
138Nodes
139=====
140
141As we have mentioned, each node in memory is described by a ``pg_data_t`` which
142is a typedef for a ``struct pglist_data``. When allocating a page, by default
143Linux uses a node-local allocation policy to allocate memory from the node
144closest to the running CPU. As processes tend to run on the same CPU, it is
145likely the memory from the current node will be used. The allocation policy can
146be controlled by users as described in
147Documentation/admin-guide/mm/numa_memory_policy.rst.
148
149Most NUMA architectures maintain an array of pointers to the node
150structures. The actual structures are allocated early during boot when
151architecture specific code parses the physical memory map reported by the
152firmware. The bulk of the node initialization happens slightly later in the
153boot process by free_area_init() function, described later in Section
154:ref:`Initialization <initialization>`.
155
156
157Along with the node structures, kernel maintains an array of ``nodemask_t``
158bitmasks called ``node_states``. Each bitmask in this array represents a set of
159nodes with particular properties as defined by ``enum node_states``:
160
161``N_POSSIBLE``
162 The node could become online at some point.
163``N_ONLINE``
164 The node is online.
165``N_NORMAL_MEMORY``
166 The node has regular memory.
167``N_HIGH_MEMORY``
168 The node has regular or high memory. When ``CONFIG_HIGHMEM`` is disabled
169 aliased to ``N_NORMAL_MEMORY``.
170``N_MEMORY``
171 The node has memory(regular, high, movable)
172``N_CPU``
173 The node has one or more CPUs
174``N_GENERIC_INITIATOR``
175 The node has one or more Generic Initiators
176
177For each node that has a property described above, the bit corresponding to the
178node ID in the ``node_states[<property>]`` bitmask is set.
179
180For example, for node 2 with normal memory and CPUs, bit 2 will be set in ::
181
182 node_states[N_POSSIBLE]
183 node_states[N_ONLINE]
184 node_states[N_NORMAL_MEMORY]
185 node_states[N_HIGH_MEMORY]
186 node_states[N_MEMORY]
187 node_states[N_CPU]
188
189For various operations possible with nodemasks please refer to
190``include/linux/nodemask.h``.
191
192Among other things, nodemasks are used to provide macros for node traversal,
193namely ``for_each_node()`` and ``for_each_online_node()``.
194
195For instance, to call a function foo() for each online node::
196
197 for_each_online_node(nid) {
198 pg_data_t *pgdat = NODE_DATA(nid);
199
200 foo(pgdat);
201 }
202
203Node structure
204--------------
205
206The nodes structure ``struct pglist_data`` is declared in
207``include/linux/mmzone.h``. Here we briefly describe fields of this
208structure:
209
210General
211~~~~~~~
212
213``node_zones``
214 The zones for this node. Not all of the zones may be populated, but it is
215 the full list. It is referenced by this node's node_zonelists as well as
216 other node's node_zonelists.
217
218``node_zonelists``
219 The list of all zones in all nodes. This list defines the order of zones
220 that allocations are preferred from. The ``node_zonelists`` is set up by
221 ``build_zonelists()`` in ``mm/page_alloc.c`` during the initialization of
222 core memory management structures.
223
224``nr_zones``
225 Number of populated zones in this node.
226
227``node_mem_map``
228 For UMA systems that use FLATMEM memory model the 0's node
229 ``node_mem_map`` is array of struct pages representing each physical frame.
230
231``node_page_ext``
232 For UMA systems that use FLATMEM memory model the 0's node
233 ``node_page_ext`` is array of extensions of struct pages. Available only
234 in the kernels built with ``CONFIG_PAGE_EXTENSION`` enabled.
235
236``node_start_pfn``
237 The page frame number of the starting page frame in this node.
238
239``node_present_pages``
240 Total number of physical pages present in this node.
241
242``node_spanned_pages``
243 Total size of physical page range, including holes.
244
245``node_size_lock``
246 A lock that protects the fields defining the node extents. Only defined when
247 at least one of ``CONFIG_MEMORY_HOTPLUG`` or
248 ``CONFIG_DEFERRED_STRUCT_PAGE_INIT`` configuration options are enabled.
249 ``pgdat_resize_lock()`` and ``pgdat_resize_unlock()`` are provided to
250 manipulate ``node_size_lock`` without checking for ``CONFIG_MEMORY_HOTPLUG``
251 or ``CONFIG_DEFERRED_STRUCT_PAGE_INIT``.
252
253``node_id``
254 The Node ID (NID) of the node, starts at 0.
255
256``totalreserve_pages``
257 This is a per-node reserve of pages that are not available to userspace
258 allocations.
259
260``first_deferred_pfn``
261 If memory initialization on large machines is deferred then this is the first
262 PFN that needs to be initialized. Defined only when
263 ``CONFIG_DEFERRED_STRUCT_PAGE_INIT`` is enabled
264
265``deferred_split_queue``
266 Per-node queue of huge pages that their split was deferred. Defined only when ``CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE`` is enabled.
267
268``__lruvec``
269 Per-node lruvec holding LRU lists and related parameters. Used only when
270 memory cgroups are disabled. It should not be accessed directly, use
271 ``mem_cgroup_lruvec()`` to look up lruvecs instead.
272
273Reclaim control
274~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
275
276See also Documentation/mm/page_reclaim.rst.
277
278``kswapd``
279 Per-node instance of kswapd kernel thread.
280
281``kswapd_wait``, ``pfmemalloc_wait``, ``reclaim_wait``
282 Workqueues used to synchronize memory reclaim tasks
283
284``nr_writeback_throttled``
285 Number of tasks that are throttled waiting on dirty pages to clean.
286
287``nr_reclaim_start``
288 Number of pages written while reclaim is throttled waiting for writeback.
289
290``kswapd_order``
291 Controls the order kswapd tries to reclaim
292
293``kswapd_highest_zoneidx``
294 The highest zone index to be reclaimed by kswapd
295
296``kswapd_failures``
297 Number of runs kswapd was unable to reclaim any pages
298
299``min_unmapped_pages``
300 Minimal number of unmapped file backed pages that cannot be reclaimed.
301 Determined by ``vm.min_unmapped_ratio`` sysctl. Only defined when
302 ``CONFIG_NUMA`` is enabled.
303
304``min_slab_pages``
305 Minimal number of SLAB pages that cannot be reclaimed. Determined by
306 ``vm.min_slab_ratio sysctl``. Only defined when ``CONFIG_NUMA`` is enabled
307
308``flags``
309 Flags controlling reclaim behavior.
310
311Compaction control
312~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
313
314``kcompactd_max_order``
315 Page order that kcompactd should try to achieve.
316
317``kcompactd_highest_zoneidx``
318 The highest zone index to be compacted by kcompactd.
319
320``kcompactd_wait``
321 Workqueue used to synchronize memory compaction tasks.
322
323``kcompactd``
324 Per-node instance of kcompactd kernel thread.
325
326``proactive_compact_trigger``
327 Determines if proactive compaction is enabled. Controlled by
328 ``vm.compaction_proactiveness`` sysctl.
329
330Statistics
331~~~~~~~~~~
332
333``per_cpu_nodestats``
334 Per-CPU VM statistics for the node
335
336``vm_stat``
337 VM statistics for the node.
338
339.. _zones:
340
341Zones
342=====
343As we have mentioned, each zone in memory is described by a ``struct zone``
344which is an element of the ``node_zones`` array of the node it belongs to.
345``struct zone`` is the core data structure of the page allocator. A zone
346represents a range of physical memory and may have holes.
347
348The page allocator uses the GFP flags, see :ref:`mm-api-gfp-flags`, specified by
349a memory allocation to determine the highest zone in a node from which the
350memory allocation can allocate memory. The page allocator first allocates memory
351from that zone, if the page allocator can't allocate the requested amount of
352memory from the zone, it will allocate memory from the next lower zone in the
353node, the process continues up to and including the lowest zone. For example, if
354a node contains ``ZONE_DMA32``, ``ZONE_NORMAL`` and ``ZONE_MOVABLE`` and the
355highest zone of a memory allocation is ``ZONE_MOVABLE``, the order of the zones
356from which the page allocator allocates memory is ``ZONE_MOVABLE`` >
357``ZONE_NORMAL`` > ``ZONE_DMA32``.
358
359At runtime, free pages in a zone are in the Per-CPU Pagesets (PCP) or free areas
360of the zone. The Per-CPU Pagesets are a vital mechanism in the kernel's memory
361management system. By handling most frequent allocations and frees locally on
362each CPU, the Per-CPU Pagesets improve performance and scalability, especially
363on systems with many cores. The page allocator in the kernel employs a two-step
364strategy for memory allocation, starting with the Per-CPU Pagesets before
365falling back to the buddy allocator. Pages are transferred between the Per-CPU
366Pagesets and the global free areas (managed by the buddy allocator) in batches.
367This minimizes the overhead of frequent interactions with the global buddy
368allocator.
369
370Architecture specific code calls free_area_init() to initializes zones.
371
372Zone structure
373--------------
374The zones structure ``struct zone`` is defined in ``include/linux/mmzone.h``.
375Here we briefly describe fields of this structure:
376
377General
378~~~~~~~
379
380``_watermark``
381 The watermarks for this zone. When the amount of free pages in a zone is below
382 the min watermark, boosting is ignored, an allocation may trigger direct
383 reclaim and direct compaction, it is also used to throttle direct reclaim.
384 When the amount of free pages in a zone is below the low watermark, kswapd is
385 woken up. When the amount of free pages in a zone is above the high watermark,
386 kswapd stops reclaiming (a zone is balanced) when the
387 ``NUMA_BALANCING_MEMORY_TIERING`` bit of ``sysctl_numa_balancing_mode`` is not
388 set. The promo watermark is used for memory tiering and NUMA balancing. When
389 the amount of free pages in a zone is above the promo watermark, kswapd stops
390 reclaiming when the ``NUMA_BALANCING_MEMORY_TIERING`` bit of
391 ``sysctl_numa_balancing_mode`` is set. The watermarks are set by
392 ``__setup_per_zone_wmarks()``. The min watermark is calculated according to
393 ``vm.min_free_kbytes`` sysctl. The other three watermarks are set according
394 to the distance between two watermarks. The distance itself is calculated
395 taking ``vm.watermark_scale_factor`` sysctl into account.
396
397``watermark_boost``
398 The number of pages which are used to boost watermarks to increase reclaim
399 pressure to reduce the likelihood of future fallbacks and wake kswapd now
400 as the node may be balanced overall and kswapd will not wake naturally.
401
402``nr_reserved_highatomic``
403 The number of pages which are reserved for high-order atomic allocations.
404
405``nr_free_highatomic``
406 The number of free pages in reserved highatomic pageblocks
407
408``lowmem_reserve``
409 The array of the amounts of the memory reserved in this zone for memory
410 allocations. For example, if the highest zone a memory allocation can
411 allocate memory from is ``ZONE_MOVABLE``, the amount of memory reserved in
412 this zone for this allocation is ``lowmem_reserve[ZONE_MOVABLE]`` when
413 attempting to allocate memory from this zone. This is a mechanism the page
414 allocator uses to prevent allocations which could use ``highmem`` from using
415 too much ``lowmem``. For some specialised workloads on ``highmem`` machines,
416 it is dangerous for the kernel to allow process memory to be allocated from
417 the ``lowmem`` zone. This is because that memory could then be pinned via the
418 ``mlock()`` system call, or by unavailability of swapspace.
419 ``vm.lowmem_reserve_ratio`` sysctl determines how aggressive the kernel is in
420 defending these lower zones. This array is recalculated by
421 ``setup_per_zone_lowmem_reserve()`` at runtime if ``vm.lowmem_reserve_ratio``
422 sysctl changes.
423
424``node``
425 The index of the node this zone belongs to. Available only when
426 ``CONFIG_NUMA`` is enabled because there is only one zone in a UMA system.
427
428``zone_pgdat``
429 Pointer to the ``struct pglist_data`` of the node this zone belongs to.
430
431``per_cpu_pageset``
432 Pointer to the Per-CPU Pagesets (PCP) allocated and initialized by
433 ``setup_zone_pageset()``. By handling most frequent allocations and frees
434 locally on each CPU, PCP improves performance and scalability on systems with
435 many cores.
436
437``pageset_high_min``
438 Copied to the ``high_min`` of the Per-CPU Pagesets for faster access.
439
440``pageset_high_max``
441 Copied to the ``high_max`` of the Per-CPU Pagesets for faster access.
442
443``pageset_batch``
444 Copied to the ``batch`` of the Per-CPU Pagesets for faster access. The
445 ``batch``, ``high_min`` and ``high_max`` of the Per-CPU Pagesets are used to
446 calculate the number of elements the Per-CPU Pagesets obtain from the buddy
447 allocator under a single hold of the lock for efficiency. They are also used
448 to decide if the Per-CPU Pagesets return pages to the buddy allocator in page
449 free process.
450
451``pageblock_flags``
452 The pointer to the flags for the pageblocks in the zone (see
453 ``include/linux/pageblock-flags.h`` for flags list). The memory is allocated
454 in ``setup_usemap()``. Each pageblock occupies ``NR_PAGEBLOCK_BITS`` bits.
455 Defined only when ``CONFIG_FLATMEM`` is enabled. The flags is stored in
456 ``mem_section`` when ``CONFIG_SPARSEMEM`` is enabled.
457
458``zone_start_pfn``
459 The start pfn of the zone. It is initialized by
460 ``calculate_node_totalpages()``.
461
462``managed_pages``
463 The present pages managed by the buddy system, which is calculated as:
464 ``managed_pages`` = ``present_pages`` - ``reserved_pages``, ``reserved_pages``
465 includes pages allocated by the memblock allocator. It should be used by page
466 allocator and vm scanner to calculate all kinds of watermarks and thresholds.
467 It is accessed using ``atomic_long_xxx()`` functions. It is initialized in
468 ``free_area_init_core()`` and then is reinitialized when memblock allocator
469 frees pages into buddy system.
470
471``spanned_pages``
472 The total pages spanned by the zone, including holes, which is calculated as:
473 ``spanned_pages`` = ``zone_end_pfn`` - ``zone_start_pfn``. It is initialized
474 by ``calculate_node_totalpages()``.
475
476``present_pages``
477 The physical pages existing within the zone, which is calculated as:
478 ``present_pages`` = ``spanned_pages`` - ``absent_pages`` (pages in holes). It
479 may be used by memory hotplug or memory power management logic to figure out
480 unmanaged pages by checking (``present_pages`` - ``managed_pages``). Write
481 access to ``present_pages`` at runtime should be protected by
482 ``mem_hotplug_begin/done()``. Any reader who can't tolerant drift of
483 ``present_pages`` should use ``get_online_mems()`` to get a stable value. It
484 is initialized by ``calculate_node_totalpages()``.
485
486``present_early_pages``
487 The present pages existing within the zone located on memory available since
488 early boot, excluding hotplugged memory. Defined only when
489 ``CONFIG_MEMORY_HOTPLUG`` is enabled and initialized by
490 ``calculate_node_totalpages()``.
491
492``cma_pages``
493 The pages reserved for CMA use. These pages behave like ``ZONE_MOVABLE`` when
494 they are not used for CMA. Defined only when ``CONFIG_CMA`` is enabled.
495
496``name``
497 The name of the zone. It is a pointer to the corresponding element of
498 the ``zone_names`` array.
499
500``nr_isolate_pageblock``
501 Number of isolated pageblocks. It is used to solve incorrect freepage counting
502 problem due to racy retrieving migratetype of pageblock. Protected by
503 ``zone->lock``. Defined only when ``CONFIG_MEMORY_ISOLATION`` is enabled.
504
505``span_seqlock``
506 The seqlock to protect ``zone_start_pfn`` and ``spanned_pages``. It is a
507 seqlock because it has to be read outside of ``zone->lock``, and it is done in
508 the main allocator path. However, the seqlock is written quite infrequently.
509 Defined only when ``CONFIG_MEMORY_HOTPLUG`` is enabled.
510
511``initialized``
512 The flag indicating if the zone is initialized. Set by
513 ``init_currently_empty_zone()`` during boot.
514
515``free_area``
516 The array of free areas, where each element corresponds to a specific order
517 which is a power of two. The buddy allocator uses this structure to manage
518 free memory efficiently. When allocating, it tries to find the smallest
519 sufficient block, if the smallest sufficient block is larger than the
520 requested size, it will be recursively split into the next smaller blocks
521 until the required size is reached. When a page is freed, it may be merged
522 with its buddy to form a larger block. It is initialized by
523 ``zone_init_free_lists()``.
524
525``unaccepted_pages``
526 The list of pages to be accepted. All pages on the list are ``MAX_PAGE_ORDER``.
527 Defined only when ``CONFIG_UNACCEPTED_MEMORY`` is enabled.
528
529``flags``
530 The zone flags. The least three bits are used and defined by
531 ``enum zone_flags``. ``ZONE_BOOSTED_WATERMARK`` (bit 0): zone recently boosted
532 watermarks. Cleared when kswapd is woken. ``ZONE_RECLAIM_ACTIVE`` (bit 1):
533 kswapd may be scanning the zone. ``ZONE_BELOW_HIGH`` (bit 2): zone is below
534 high watermark.
535
536``lock``
537 The main lock that protects the internal data structures of the page allocator
538 specific to the zone, especially protects ``free_area``.
539
540``percpu_drift_mark``
541 When free pages are below this point, additional steps are taken when reading
542 the number of free pages to avoid per-cpu counter drift allowing watermarks
543 to be breached. It is updated in ``refresh_zone_stat_thresholds()``.
544
545Compaction control
546~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
547
548``compact_cached_free_pfn``
549 The PFN where compaction free scanner should start in the next scan.
550
551``compact_cached_migrate_pfn``
552 The PFNs where compaction migration scanner should start in the next scan.
553 This array has two elements: the first one is used in ``MIGRATE_ASYNC`` mode,
554 and the other one is used in ``MIGRATE_SYNC`` mode.
555
556``compact_init_migrate_pfn``
557 The initial migration PFN which is initialized to 0 at boot time, and to the
558 first pageblock with migratable pages in the zone after a full compaction
559 finishes. It is used to check if a scan is a whole zone scan or not.
560
561``compact_init_free_pfn``
562 The initial free PFN which is initialized to 0 at boot time and to the last
563 pageblock with free ``MIGRATE_MOVABLE`` pages in the zone. It is used to check
564 if it is the start of a scan.
565
566``compact_considered``
567 The number of compactions attempted since last failure. It is reset in
568 ``defer_compaction()`` when a compaction fails to result in a page allocation
569 success. It is increased by 1 in ``compaction_deferred()`` when a compaction
570 should be skipped. ``compaction_deferred()`` is called before
571 ``compact_zone()`` is called, ``compaction_defer_reset()`` is called when
572 ``compact_zone()`` returns ``COMPACT_SUCCESS``, ``defer_compaction()`` is
573 called when ``compact_zone()`` returns ``COMPACT_PARTIAL_SKIPPED`` or
574 ``COMPACT_COMPLETE``.
575
576``compact_defer_shift``
577 The number of compactions skipped before trying again is
578 ``1<<compact_defer_shift``. It is increased by 1 in ``defer_compaction()``.
579 It is reset in ``compaction_defer_reset()`` when a direct compaction results
580 in a page allocation success. Its maximum value is ``COMPACT_MAX_DEFER_SHIFT``.
581
582``compact_order_failed``
583 The minimum compaction failed order. It is set in ``compaction_defer_reset()``
584 when a compaction succeeds and in ``defer_compaction()`` when a compaction
585 fails to result in a page allocation success.
586
587``compact_blockskip_flush``
588 Set to true when compaction migration scanner and free scanner meet, which
589 means the ``PB_compact_skip`` bits should be cleared.
590
591``contiguous``
592 Set to true when the zone is contiguous (in other words, no hole).
593
594Statistics
595~~~~~~~~~~
596
597``vm_stat``
598 VM statistics for the zone. The items tracked are defined by
599 ``enum zone_stat_item``.
600
601``vm_numa_event``
602 VM NUMA event statistics for the zone. The items tracked are defined by
603 ``enum numa_stat_item``.
604
605``per_cpu_zonestats``
606 Per-CPU VM statistics for the zone. It records VM statistics and VM NUMA event
607 statistics on a per-CPU basis. It reduces updates to the global ``vm_stat``
608 and ``vm_numa_event`` fields of the zone to improve performance.
609
610.. _pages:
611
612Pages
613=====
614
615.. admonition:: Stub
616
617 This section is incomplete. Please list and describe the appropriate fields.
618
619.. _folios:
620
621Folios
622======
623
624.. admonition:: Stub
625
626 This section is incomplete. Please list and describe the appropriate fields.
627
628.. _initialization:
629
630Initialization
631==============
632
633.. admonition:: Stub
634
635 This section is incomplete. Please list and describe the appropriate fields.