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Diffstat (limited to 'sys/vm/TODO')
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diff --git a/sys/vm/TODO b/sys/vm/TODO new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..9a60f5a83bd --- /dev/null +++ b/sys/vm/TODO @@ -0,0 +1,115 @@ +A random assortment of things that I have thought about from time to time. +The biggie is: + +0. Merge the page and buffer caches. + This has been bandied about for a long time. First need to decide + whether you use VFS routines to do pagein/pageout or VM routines to + do IO? Lots of other things to worry about: mismatches in page/FS-block + sizes, how to balance their memory needs, how is anon memory represented, + how do you get file meta-data, etc. + +or more modestly: + +1. Use the multi-page pager interface to implement clustered pageins. + Probably can't be as aggressive (w.r.t. cluster size) as in clustered + pageout. Maybe keep some kind of window ala the vfs_cluster routine + or maybe always just be conservative. + +2. vm_object_page_clean() needs work. + For one, it uses a worst-case O(N**2) algorithm. Since we might block + in the pageout routine, it has to start over again afterward as things + may have changed in the meantime. Someone else actively writing pages + in the object could keep this routine going forever also. Note that + just holding the object lock would be insufficient (even if it was safe) + since these locks compile away on non-MP machines (i.e. always). + Maybe we need an OBJ_BUSY flag to be check by anyone attempting to + insert, modify or delete pages in the object. This routine should also + use clustering like vm_pageout to speed things along. + +3. Do aggressive swapout. + Right now the swapper just unwires the u-area allowing a process to be + paged into oblivion. We could use vm_map_clean() to force a process out + in a hurry though this should probably only be done for "private" objects + (i.e. refcount == 1). + +4. Rethink sharing maps. + Right now they are used inconsistently: related (via fork) processes + sharing memory have one, unrelated (via mmap) processes don't. Mach + eliminated these a while back, I'm not sure what the right thing to do + here is. + +5. Use fictitious pages in vm_fault. + Right now a real page is allocated in the top level object to prevent + other faults from simultaneously going down the shadow chain. Later, + a second real page may be allocated. Current Mach allocates a fictitious + page in the top object and replaces it with a real one as necessary. + +6. Improve the pageout daemon. + It suffers from the same problem the old (4.2 vintage?) BSD one did. + With large physical memories, cleaned pages may not be freed for a long + time. In the meantime, the daemon will continue cleaning more pages in + an attempt to free memory. This can lead to bursts of paging activity + and erratic levels in the free list. + +7. Nuke MAP_COPY. + It isn't true anyway. You can still get data modified after the virtual + copy for pages that aren't present in memory at the time of the copy. + The only concern with getting rid of it is that exec uses it for mapping + the text of an executable (to deal with the modified text problem). + MAP_COPY could probably be fixed but I don't think it is worth it. If + you want true copy semantics, use read(). + +8. Try harder to collapse objects. + Can wind up with a lot of wasted swap space in needlessly long shadow + chains. The problem is that you cannot collapse an object's backing + object if the first object has a pager. Since all our pagers have + relatively inexpensive routines to determine if a pager object has a + particular page, we could do a better job. Probably don't want to go + as far as bringing pages in from the backing object's pager just to move + them to the primary object. + +9. Implement madvise (Sun style). + MADV_RANDOM: don't do clustered pageins. (like now!) + MADV_SEQUENTIAL: in vm_fault, deactivate cached pages with lower + offsets than the desired page. Also only do forward read-ahead. + MADV_WILLNEED: vm_fault the range, maybe deactivate to avoid conspicuous + consumption. + MADV_DONTNEED: clean and free the range. Is this identical to msync + with MS_INVALIDATE? + +10. Machine dependent hook for virtual memory allocation. + When the system gets to chose where something is placed in an address + space, it should call a pmap routine to choose a desired location. + This is useful for virtually-indexed cache machine where there are magic + alignments that can prevent aliasing problems. + +11. Allow vnode pager to be the default pager. + Mostly interface (how to configure a swap file) and policy (what objects + are backed in which files) needed. + +12. Keep page/buffer caches coherent. + Assuming #0 is not done. Right now, very little is done. The VM does + track file size changes (vnode_pager_setsize) so that mapped accesses + to truncated files give the correct response (SIGBUS). It also purges + unmapped cached objects whenever the corresponding file is changed + (vnode_pager_uncache) but it doesn't maintain coherency of mapped objects + that are changed via read/write (or visa-versa). Reasonable explicit + coherency can be maintained with msync but that is pretty feeble. + +13. Properly handle sharing in the presence of wired pages. + Right now it is possible to remove wired pages via pmap_page_protect. + This has become an issue with the addition of the mlock() call which allows + the situation where there are multiple mappings for a phys page and one or + more of them are wired. It is then possible that pmap_page_protect() with + VM_PROT_NONE will be invoked. Most implementations will go ahead and + remove the wired mapping along with all other mappings, violating the + assumption of wired-ness and potentially causing a panic later on when + an attempt is made to unwire the page and the mapping doesn't exist. + A work around of not removing wired mappings in pmap_page_protect is + implemented in the hp300 pmap but leads to a condition that may be just + as bad, "detached mappings" that exist at the pmap level but are unknown + to the higher level VM. +---- +Mike Hibler +University of Utah CSS group +mike@cs.utah.edu |