42 lines
1.4 KiB
ReStructuredText
42 lines
1.4 KiB
ReStructuredText
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===========================
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Boot time memory management
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===========================
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Early system initialization cannot use "normal" memory management
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simply because it is not set up yet. But there is still need to
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allocate memory for various data structures, for instance for the
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physical page allocator.
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A specialized allocator called ``memblock`` performs the
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boot time memory management. The architecture specific initialization
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must set it up in :c:func:`setup_arch` and tear it down in
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:c:func:`mem_init` functions.
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Once the early memory management is available it offers a variety of
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functions and macros for memory allocations. The allocation request
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may be directed to the first (and probably the only) node or to a
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particular node in a NUMA system. There are API variants that panic
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when an allocation fails and those that don't.
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Memblock also offers a variety of APIs that control its own behaviour.
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Memblock Overview
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=================
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.. kernel-doc:: mm/memblock.c
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:doc: memblock overview
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Functions and structures
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========================
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Here is the description of memblock data structures, functions and
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macros. Some of them are actually internal, but since they are
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documented it would be silly to omit them. Besides, reading the
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descriptions for the internal functions can help to understand what
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really happens under the hood.
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.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/memblock.h
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.. kernel-doc:: mm/memblock.c
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:functions:
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