linux-kernel - [PATCH] zsmalloc documentation

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Message-Id: <1338754805-1733-1-git-send-email-ngupta@vflare.org>
Date:	Sun,  3 Jun 2012 13:20:05 -0700
From:	Nitin Gupta <ngupta@...are.org>
To:	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>
Cc:	Dan Magenheimer <dan.magenheimer@...cle.com>,
	Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>,
	Seth Jennings <sjenning@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@...il.com>,
	linux-mm <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH] zsmalloc documentation

Signed-off-by: Nitin Gupta <ngupta@...are.org>
---
 drivers/staging/zsmalloc/zsmalloc-main.c |   49 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 49 insertions(+)

diff --git a/drivers/staging/zsmalloc/zsmalloc-main.c b/drivers/staging/zsmalloc/zsmalloc-main.c
index 4496737..f80f2fd 100644
--- a/drivers/staging/zsmalloc/zsmalloc-main.c
+++ b/drivers/staging/zsmalloc/zsmalloc-main.c
@@ -10,6 +10,55 @@
  * Released under the terms of GNU General Public License Version 2.0
  */
 
+
+/*
+ * This allocator is designed for use with zcache and zram. Thus, the
+ * allocator is supposed to work well under low memory conditions. In
+ * particular, it never attempts higher order page allocation which is
+ * very likely to fail under memory pressure. On the other hand, if we
+ * just use single (0-order) pages, it would suffer from very high
+ * fragmentation -- any object of size PAGE_SIZE/2 or larger would occupy
+ * an entire page. This was one of the major issues with its predecessor
+ * (xvmalloc).
+ *
+ * To overcome these issues, zsmalloc allocates a bunch of 0-order pages
+ * and links them together using various 'struct page' fields. These linked
+ * pages act as a single higher-order page i.e. an object can span 0-order
+ * page boundaries. The code refers to these linked pages as a single entity
+ * called zspage.
+ *
+ * Following is how we use various fields and flags of underlying
+ * struct page(s) to form a zspage.
+ *
+ * Usage of struct page fields:
+ *	page->first_page: points to the first component (0-order) page
+ *	[first] page->private (union with page->first_page): refers to the
+ *		component page after the first page
+ *
+ *	[first] page->freelist: points to the first free object in zspage.
+ *		Free objects are linked together using in-place
+ *		metadata.
+ *	page->index (union with page->freelist): offset of the first object
+ *		starting in this page. For the first page, this is
+ *		always 0, so we use this field (aka freelist) to point
+ *		to the first free object in zspage.
+ *
+ *	[first] page->objects: maximum number of objects we can store in this
+ *		zspage (class->zspage_order * PAGE_SIZE / class->size)
+ *
+ *	page->lru: links together all component pages (except the first page)
+ *		of a zspage
+ *	[first] page->lru: links together first pages of various zspages.
+ *		Basically forming list of zspages in a fullness group.
+ *
+ *	[first] page->mapping: class index and fullness group of the zspage
+ *
+ * Usage of struct page flags:
+ *	PG_private: identifies the first component page
+ *	PG_private2: identifies the last component page
+ *
+ */
+
 #ifdef CONFIG_ZSMALLOC_DEBUG
 #define DEBUG
 #endif
-- 
1.7.10.2

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