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e00c3a07 1.\" Copyright (C) 2001 David Gómez <davidge@jazzfree.com>
fea681da 2.\"
5fbde956 3.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
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4.\"
5.\" Based on comments from mm/filemap.c. Last modified on 10-06-2001
c11b1abf 6.\" Modified, 25 Feb 2002, Michael Kerrisk, <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
fea681da 7.\" Added notes on MADV_DONTNEED
5baa8f09
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8.\" 2010-06-19, mtk, Added documentation of MADV_MERGEABLE and
9.\" MADV_UNMERGEABLE
f5321b14
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10.\" 2010-06-15, Andi Kleen, Add documentation of MADV_HWPOISON.
11.\" 2010-06-19, Andi Kleen, Add documentation of MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE.
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12.\" 2011-09-18, Doug Goldstein <cardoe@cardoe.com>
13.\" Document MADV_HUGEPAGE and MADV_NOHUGEPAGE
347e325b 14.\"
4c1c5274 15.TH madvise 2 (date) "Linux man-pages (unreleased)"
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16.SH NAME
17madvise \- give advice about use of memory
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18.SH LIBRARY
19Standard C library
8fc3b2cf 20.RI ( libc ", " \-lc )
fea681da 21.SH SYNOPSIS
c7db92b9 22.nf
fea681da 23.B #include <sys/mman.h>
68e4db0a 24.PP
c64cd13e 25.BI "int madvise(void " addr [. length "], size_t " length ", int " advice );
c7db92b9 26.fi
68e4db0a 27.PP
d39ad78f 28.RS -4
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29Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
30.BR feature_test_macros (7)):
d39ad78f 31.RE
68e4db0a 32.PP
cc4615cc 33.BR madvise ():
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34.nf
35 Since glibc 2.19:
36 _DEFAULT_SOURCE
37 Up to and including glibc 2.19:
38 _BSD_SOURCE
39.fi
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40.SH DESCRIPTION
41The
e511ffb6 42.BR madvise ()
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43system call is used to give advice or directions to the kernel
44about the address range beginning at address
14f5ae6d 45.I addr
fea681da 46and with size
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47.IR length .
48.BR madvise ()
49only operates on whole pages, therefore
50.I addr
51must be page-aligned.
52The value of
fea681da 53.I length
756761bf 54is rounded up to a multiple of page size.
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55In most cases,
56the goal of such advice is to improve system or application performance.
efeece04 57.PP
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58Initially, the system call supported a set of "conventional"
59.I advice
60values, which are also available on several other implementations.
61(Note, though, that
62.BR madvise ()
63is not specified in POSIX.)
64Subsequently, a number of Linux-specific
1ae6b2c7 65.I advice
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66values have been added.
67.\"
68.\" ======================================================================
69.\"
70.SS Conventional advice values
71The
72.I advice
73values listed below
74allow an application to tell the kernel how it expects to use
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75some mapped or shared memory areas, so that the kernel can choose
76appropriate read-ahead and caching techniques.
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77These
78.I advice
79values do not influence the semantics of the application
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80(except in the case of
81.BR MADV_DONTNEED ),
845c8bea 82but may influence its performance.
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83All of the
84.I advice
85values listed here have analogs in the POSIX-specified
86.BR posix_madvise (3)
87function, and the values have the same meanings, with the exception of
88.BR MADV_DONTNEED .
dd3568a1 89.PP
c13182ef 90The advice is indicated in the
fea681da 91.I advice
95467f1d 92argument, which is one of the following:
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93.TP
94.B MADV_NORMAL
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95No special treatment.
96This is the default.
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97.TP
98.B MADV_RANDOM
99Expect page references in random order.
100(Hence, read ahead may be less useful than normally.)
101.TP
102.B MADV_SEQUENTIAL
103Expect page references in sequential order.
104(Hence, pages in the given range can be aggressively read ahead,
105and may be freed soon after they are accessed.)
106.TP
107.B MADV_WILLNEED
108Expect access in the near future.
109(Hence, it might be a good idea to read some pages ahead.)
110.TP
111.B MADV_DONTNEED
112Do not expect access in the near future.
113(For the time being, the application is finished with the given range,
114so the kernel can free resources associated with it.)
efeece04 115.IP
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116After a successful
117.B MADV_DONTNEED
118operation,
119the semantics of memory access in the specified region are changed:
120subsequent accesses of pages in the range will succeed, but will result
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121in either repopulating the memory contents from the
122up-to-date contents of the underlying mapped file
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123(for shared file mappings, shared anonymous mappings,
124and shmem-based techniques such as System V shared memory segments)
125or zero-fill-on-demand pages for anonymous private mappings.
efeece04 126.IP
d5e9c9bb 127Note that, when applied to shared mappings,
1ae6b2c7 128.B MADV_DONTNEED
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129might not lead to immediate freeing of the pages in the range.
130The kernel is free to delay freeing the pages until an appropriate moment.
131The resident set size (RSS) of the calling process will be immediately
132reduced however.
efeece04 133.IP
a727d7cc 134.B MADV_DONTNEED
756761bf 135cannot be applied to locked pages, or
1ae6b2c7 136.B VM_PFNMAP
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137pages.
138(Pages marked with the kernel-internal
139.B VM_PFNMAP
140.\" http://lwn.net/Articles/162860/
141flag are special memory areas that are not managed
142by the virtual memory subsystem.
143Such pages are typically created by device drivers that
144map the pages into user space.)
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145.IP
146Support for Huge TLB pages was added in Linux v5.18.
147Addresses within a mapping backed by Huge TLB pages must be aligned
148to the underlying Huge TLB page size,
149and the range length is rounded up
150to a multiple of the underlying Huge TLB page size.
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151.\"
152.\" ======================================================================
153.\"
154.SS Linux-specific advice values
155The following Linux-specific
156.I advice
157values have no counterparts in the POSIX-specified
158.BR posix_madvise (3),
159and may or may not have counterparts in the
160.BR madvise ()
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161interface available on other implementations.
162Note that some of these operations change the semantics of memory accesses.
835c4d5c 163.TP
31c1f2b0 164.BR MADV_REMOVE " (since Linux 2.6.16)"
498f9213 165.\" commit f6b3ec238d12c8cc6cc71490c6e3127988460349
835c4d5c 166Free up a given range of pages
c13182ef 167and its associated backing store.
756761bf 168This is equivalent to punching a hole in the corresponding
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169range of the backing store (see
170.BR fallocate (2)).
171Subsequent accesses in the specified address range will see
756761bf 172data with a value of zero.
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173.\" Databases want to use this feature to drop a section of their
174.\" bufferpool (shared memory segments) - without writing back to
175.\" disk/swap space. This feature is also useful for supporting
176.\" hot-plug memory on UML.
efeece04 177.IP
5575818d 178The specified address range must be mapped shared and writable.
756761bf 179This flag cannot be applied to locked pages, or
1ae6b2c7 180.B VM_PFNMAP
36e5bc92 181pages.
efeece04 182.IP
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183In the initial implementation, only
184.BR tmpfs (5)
756761bf 185supported
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186.BR MADV_REMOVE ;
187but since Linux 3.5,
188.\" commit 3f31d07571eeea18a7d34db9af21d2285b807a17
f7282b7b 189any filesystem which supports the
deb99649 190.BR fallocate (2)
1ae6b2c7 191.B FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE
95467f1d 192mode also supports
f7282b7b 193.BR MADV_REMOVE .
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194Filesystems which do not support
195.B MADV_REMOVE
196fail with the error
deb99649 197.BR EOPNOTSUPP .
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198.IP
199Support for the Huge TLB filesystem was added in Linux v4.3.
835c4d5c 200.TP
31c1f2b0 201.BR MADV_DONTFORK " (since Linux 2.6.16)"
498f9213 202.\" commit f822566165dd46ff5de9bf895cfa6c51f53bb0c4
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203.\" See http://lwn.net/Articles/171941/
204Do not make the pages in this range available to the child after a
205.BR fork (2).
206This is useful to prevent copy-on-write semantics from changing
95467f1d 207the physical location of a page if the parent writes to it after a
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208.BR fork (2).
209(Such page relocations cause problems for hardware that
95467f1d 210DMAs into the page.)
835c4d5c 211.\" [PATCH] madvise MADV_DONTFORK/MADV_DOFORK
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212.\" Currently, copy-on-write may change the physical address of
213.\" a page even if the user requested that the page is pinned in
214.\" memory (either by mlock or by get_user_pages). This happens
215.\" if the process forks meanwhile, and the parent writes to that
216.\" page. As a result, the page is orphaned: in case of
217.\" get_user_pages, the application will never see any data hardware
218.\" DMA's into this page after the COW. In case of mlock'd memory,
835c4d5c 219.\" the parent is not getting the realtime/security benefits of mlock.
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220.\"
221.\" In particular, this affects the Infiniband modules which do DMA from
835c4d5c 222.\" and into user pages all the time.
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223.\"
224.\" This patch adds madvise options to control whether memory range is
225.\" inherited across fork. Useful e.g. for when hardware is doing DMA
226.\" from/into these pages. Could also be useful to an application
227.\" wanting to speed up its forks by cutting large areas out of
835c4d5c 228.\" consideration.
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229.\"
230.\" SEE ALSO: http://lwn.net/Articles/171941/
231.\" "Tweaks to madvise() and posix_fadvise()", 14 Feb 2006
835c4d5c 232.TP
31c1f2b0 233.BR MADV_DOFORK " (since Linux 2.6.16)"
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234Undo the effect of
235.BR MADV_DONTFORK ,
d9bfdb9c 236restoring the default behavior, whereby a mapping is inherited across
835c4d5c 237.BR fork (2).
523c2f67 238.TP
9bfc9cb1 239.BR MADV_HWPOISON " (since Linux 2.6.32)"
498f9213 240.\" commit 9893e49d64a4874ea67849ee2cfbf3f3d6817573
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241Poison the pages in the range specified by
242.I addr
243and
1ae6b2c7 244.I length
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245and handle subsequent references to those pages
246like a hardware memory corruption.
33a0ccb2 247This operation is available only for privileged
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248.RB ( CAP_SYS_ADMIN )
249processes.
250This operation may result in the calling process receiving a
251.B SIGBUS
252and the page being unmapped.
efeece04 253.IP
ae24c212 254This feature is intended for testing of memory error-handling code;
33a0ccb2 255it is available only if the kernel was configured with
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256.BR CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE .
257.TP
5baa8f09 258.BR MADV_MERGEABLE " (since Linux 2.6.32)"
498f9213 259.\" commit f8af4da3b4c14e7267c4ffb952079af3912c51c5
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260Enable Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM) for the pages in the range specified by
261.I addr
262and
e5963382 263.IR length .
3b18c59b 264The kernel regularly scans those areas of user memory that have
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265been marked as mergeable,
266looking for pages with identical content.
267These are replaced by a single write-protected page (which is automatically
268copied if a process later wants to update the content of the page).
33a0ccb2 269KSM merges only private anonymous pages (see
5baa8f09 270.BR mmap (2)).
efeece04 271.IP
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272The KSM feature is intended for applications that generate many
273instances of the same data (e.g., virtualization systems such as KVM).
274It can consume a lot of processing power; use with care.
66a9882e 275See the Linux kernel source file
b49c2acb 276.I Documentation/admin\-guide/mm/ksm.rst
5baa8f09 277for more details.
efeece04 278.IP
5baa8f09 279The
1ae6b2c7 280.B MADV_MERGEABLE
5baa8f09 281and
1ae6b2c7 282.B MADV_UNMERGEABLE
33a0ccb2 283operations are available only if the kernel was configured with
8c3fb604 284.BR CONFIG_KSM .
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285.TP
286.BR MADV_UNMERGEABLE " (since Linux 2.6.32)"
287Undo the effect of an earlier
1ae6b2c7 288.B MADV_MERGEABLE
5baa8f09 289operation on the specified address range;
ff24dd19 290KSM unmerges whatever pages it had merged in the address range specified by
1ae6b2c7 291.I addr
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292and
293.IR length .
e8dd3ed2 294.TP
9bfc9cb1 295.BR MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE " (since Linux 2.6.33)"
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296.\" commit afcf938ee0aac4ef95b1a23bac704c6fbeb26de6
297Soft offline the pages in the range specified by
298.I addr
299and
300.IR length .
301The memory of each page in the specified range is preserved
302(i.e., when next accessed, the same content will be visible,
303but in a new physical page frame),
304and the original page is offlined
305(i.e., no longer used, and taken out of normal memory management).
306The effect of the
307.B MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE
308operation is invisible to (i.e., does not change the semantics of)
309the calling process.
efeece04 310.IP
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311This feature is intended for testing of memory error-handling code;
312it is available only if the kernel was configured with
313.BR CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE .
314.TP
e8dd3ed2 315.BR MADV_HUGEPAGE " (since Linux 2.6.38)"
498f9213 316.\" commit 0af4e98b6b095c74588af04872f83d333c958c32
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317.\" http://lwn.net/Articles/358904/
318.\" https://lwn.net/Articles/423584/
95467f1d 319Enable Transparent Huge Pages (THP) for pages in the range specified by
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320.I addr
321and
322.IR length .
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323The kernel will regularly scan the areas marked as huge page candidates
324to replace them with huge pages.
325The kernel will also allocate huge pages directly when the region is
3d4b49b0 326naturally aligned to the huge page size (see
e8dd3ed2 327.BR posix_memalign (2)).
efeece04 328.IP
c0e140e6 329This feature is primarily aimed at applications that use large mappings of
e9dedcd2 330data and access large regions of that memory at a time (e.g., virtualization
c0e140e6 331systems such as QEMU).
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332It can very easily waste memory (e.g., a 2\ MB mapping that only ever accesses
3331 byte will result in 2\ MB of wired memory instead of one 4\ KB page).
66a9882e 334See the Linux kernel source file
b49c2acb 335.I Documentation/admin\-guide/mm/transhuge.rst
e8dd3ed2 336for more details.
efeece04 337.IP
38b08118
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338Most common kernels configurations provide
339.BR MADV_HUGEPAGE -style
340behavior by default, and thus
1ae6b2c7 341.B MADV_HUGEPAGE
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342is normally not necessary.
343It is mostly intended for embedded systems, where
20b9102a 344.BR MADV_HUGEPAGE -style
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345behavior may not be enabled by default in the kernel.
346On such systems,
347this flag can be used in order to selectively enable THP.
348Whenever
1ae6b2c7 349.B MADV_HUGEPAGE
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350is used, it should always be in regions of memory with
351an access pattern that the developer knows in advance won't risk
352to increase the memory footprint of the application when transparent
353hugepages are enabled.
354.IP
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355.\" commit 99cb0dbd47a15d395bf3faa78dc122bc5efe3fc0
356Since Linux 5.4,
357automatic scan of eligible areas and replacement by huge pages works with
358private anonymous pages (see
359.BR mmap (2)),
360shmem pages,
361and file-backed pages.
362For all memory types,
363memory may only be replaced by huge pages on hugepage-aligned boundaries.
364For file-mapped memory
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365\[em]including tmpfs (see
366.BR tmpfs (2))\[em]
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367the mapping must also be naturally hugepage-aligned within the file.
368Additionally,
369for file-backed,
370non-tmpfs memory,
371the file must not be open for write and the mapping must be executable.
372.IP
373The VMA must not be marked
374.BR VM_NOHUGEPAGE ,
375.BR VM_HUGETLB ,
376.BR VM_IO ,
377.BR VM_DONTEXPAND ,
378.BR VM_MIXEDMAP ,
379or
380.BR VM_PFNMAP ,
381nor can it be stack memory or backed by a DAX-enabled device
382(unless the DAX device is hot-plugged as System RAM).
383The process must also not have
384.B PR_SET_THP_DISABLE
385set (see
386.BR prctl (2)).
387.IP
e8dd3ed2 388The
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389.BR MADV_HUGEPAGE ,
390.BR MADV_NOHUGEPAGE ,
e8dd3ed2 391and
b106cd5b 392.B MADV_COLLAPSE
33a0ccb2 393operations are available only if the kernel was configured with
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394.B CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE
395and file/shmem memory is only supported if the kernel was configured with
396.BR CONFIG_READ_ONLY_THP_FOR_FS .
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397.TP
398.BR MADV_NOHUGEPAGE " (since Linux 2.6.38)"
399Ensures that memory in the address range specified by
1ae6b2c7 400.I addr
e8dd3ed2 401and
1ae6b2c7 402.I length
38b08118 403will not be backed by transparent hugepages.
c639b314 404.TP
b106cd5b
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405.BR MADV_COLLAPSE " (since Linux 6.1)"
406.\" commit 7d8faaf155454f8798ec56404faca29a82689c77
407.\" commit 34488399fa08faaf664743fa54b271eb6f9e1321
408Perform a best-effort synchronous collapse of
409the native pages mapped by the memory range
410into Transparent Huge Pages (THPs).
411.B MADV_COLLAPSE
412operates on the current state of memory of the calling process and
413makes no persistent changes or guarantees on how pages will be mapped,
414constructed,
415or faulted in the future.
416.IP
417.B MADV_COLLAPSE
418supports private anonymous pages (see
419.BR mmap (2)),
420shmem pages,
421and file-backed pages.
422See
423.B MADV_HUGEPAGE
424for general information on memory requirements for THP.
425If the range provided spans multiple VMAs,
426the semantics of the collapse over each VMA is independent from the others.
427If collapse of a given huge page-aligned/sized region fails,
428the operation may continue to attempt collapsing
429the remainder of the specified memory.
430.B MADV_COLLAPSE
431will automatically clamp the provided range to be hugepage-aligned.
432.IP
433All non-resident pages covered by the range
434will first be swapped/faulted-in,
435before being copied onto a freshly allocated hugepage.
436If the native pages compose the same PTE-mapped hugepage,
437and are suitably aligned,
438allocation of a new hugepage may be elided and
439collapse may happen in-place.
440Unmapped pages will have their data directly initialized to 0
441in the new hugepage.
442However,
443for every eligible hugepage-aligned/sized region to be collapsed,
444at least one page must currently be backed by physical memory.
445.IP
446.B MADV_COLLAPSE
447is independent of any sysfs
448(see
449.BR sysfs (5))
450setting under
451.IR /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage ,
452both in terms of determining THP eligibility,
453and allocation semantics.
454See Linux kernel source file
455.I Documentation/admin\-guide/mm/transhuge.rst
456for more information.
457.B MADV_COLLAPSE
458also ignores
459.B huge=
460tmpfs mount when operating on tmpfs files.
461Allocation for the new hugepage may enter direct reclaim and/or compaction,
462regardless of VMA flags
463(though
464.B VM_NOHUGEPAGE
465is still respected).
466.IP
467When the system has multiple NUMA nodes,
468the hugepage will be allocated from
469the node providing the most native pages.
470.IP
471If all hugepage-sized/aligned regions covered by the provided range were
472either successfully collapsed,
473or were already PMD-mapped THPs,
474this operation will be deemed successful.
475Note that this doesn't guarantee anything about
476other possible mappings of the memory.
477In the event multiple hugepage-aligned/sized areas fail to collapse,
478only the most-recently\[en]failed code will be set in
479.IR errno .
480.TP
c639b314 481.BR MADV_DONTDUMP " (since Linux 3.4)"
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482.\" commit 909af768e88867016f427264ae39d27a57b6a8ed
483.\" commit accb61fe7bb0f5c2a4102239e4981650f9048519
c639b314
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484Exclude from a core dump those pages in the range specified by
485.I addr
486and
487.IR length .
488This is useful in applications that have large areas of memory
489that are known not to be useful in a core dump.
490The effect of
1ae6b2c7 491.B MADV_DONTDUMP
c639b314 492takes precedence over the bit mask that is set via the
750653a8 493.I /proc/[pid]/coredump_filter
c639b314
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494file (see
495.BR core (5)).
496.TP
497.BR MADV_DODUMP " (since Linux 3.4)"
498Undo the effect of an earlier
499.BR MADV_DONTDUMP .
9ec13698 500.TP
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501.BR MADV_FREE " (since Linux 4.5)"
502The application no longer requires the pages in the range specified by
1ae6b2c7 503.I addr
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504and
505.IR len .
506The kernel can thus free these pages,
507but the freeing could be delayed until memory pressure occurs.
508For each of the pages that has been marked to be freed
509but has not yet been freed,
510the free operation will be canceled if the caller writes into the page.
511After a successful
512.B MADV_FREE
513operation, any stale data (i.e., dirty, unwritten pages) will be lost
514when the kernel frees the pages.
515However, subsequent writes to pages in the range will succeed
516and then kernel cannot free those dirtied pages,
517so that the caller can always see just written data.
518If there is no subsequent write,
519the kernel can free the pages at any time.
520Once pages in the range have been freed, the caller will
521see zero-fill-on-demand pages upon subsequent page references.
efeece04 522.IP
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523The
524.B MADV_FREE
525operation
526can be applied only to private anonymous pages (see
9ec13698 527.BR mmap (2)).
b324e17d 528Before Linux 4.12,
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529.\" commit 93e06c7a645343d222c9a838834a51042eebbbf7
530when freeing pages on a swapless system,
531the pages in the given range are freed instantly,
9ec13698 532regardless of memory pressure.
c0c4f6c2
RR
533.TP
534.BR MADV_WIPEONFORK " (since Linux 4.14)"
535.\" commit d2cd9ede6e193dd7d88b6d27399e96229a551b19
536Present the child process with zero-filled memory in this range after a
537.BR fork (2).
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538This is useful in forking servers in order to ensure
539that sensitive per-process data
540(for example, PRNG seeds, cryptographic secrets, and so on)
541is not handed to child processes.
c0c4f6c2
RR
542.IP
543The
544.B MADV_WIPEONFORK
2c63b13e 545operation can be applied only to private anonymous pages (see
c0c4f6c2 546.BR mmap (2)).
dca5d444
MK
547.IP
548Within the child created by
549.BR fork (2),
550the
551.B MADV_WIPEONFORK
552setting remains in place on the specified address range.
553This setting is cleared during
554.BR execve (2).
c0c4f6c2
RR
555.TP
556.BR MADV_KEEPONFORK " (since Linux 4.14)"
557.\" commit d2cd9ede6e193dd7d88b6d27399e96229a551b19
558Undo the effect of an earlier
559.BR MADV_WIPEONFORK .
c9c9ab2e
MK
560.TP
561.BR MADV_COLD " (since Linux 5.4)"
562.\" commit 9c276cc65a58faf98be8e56962745ec99ab87636
563Deactivate a given range of pages.
564This will make the pages a more probable
565reclaim target should there be a memory pressure.
566This is a nondestructive operation.
567The advice might be ignored for some pages in the range when it is not
568applicable.
569.TP
570.BR MADV_PAGEOUT " (since Linux 5.4)"
571.\" commit 1a4e58cce84ee88129d5d49c064bd2852b481357
572Reclaim a given range of pages.
573This is done to free up memory occupied by these pages.
574If a page is anonymous, it will be swapped out.
575If a page is file-backed and dirty, it will be written back to the backing
576storage.
577The advice might be ignored for some pages in the range when it is not
578applicable.
9f307c06
DH
579.TP
580.BR MADV_POPULATE_READ " (since Linux 5.14)"
581"Populate (prefault) page tables readable,
582faulting in all pages in the range just as if manually reading from each page;
583however,
584avoid the actual memory access that would have been performed after handling
585the fault.
586.IP
587In contrast to
588.BR MAP_POPULATE ,
589.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
590does not hide errors,
591can be applied to (parts of) existing mappings and will always populate
592(prefault) page tables readable.
593One example use case is prefaulting a file mapping,
594reading all file content from disk;
595however,
596pages won't be dirtied and consequently won't have to be written back to disk
597when evicting the pages from memory.
598.IP
599Depending on the underlying mapping,
600map the shared zeropage,
601preallocate memory or read the underlying file;
602files with holes might or might not preallocate blocks.
603If populating fails,
604a
605.B SIGBUS
606signal is not generated; instead, an error is returned.
607.IP
608If
609.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
610succeeds,
611all page tables have been populated (prefaulted) readable once.
612If
613.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
614fails,
615some page tables might have been populated.
616.IP
617.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
618cannot be applied to mappings without read permissions
619and special mappings,
620for example,
621mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such as
622.B VM_PFNMAP
623or
624.BR VM_IO ,
625or secret memory regions created using
626.BR memfd_secret(2) .
627.IP
628Note that with
629.BR MADV_POPULATE_READ ,
630the process can be killed at any moment when the system runs out of memory.
631.TP
632.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE " (since Linux 5.14)"
633Populate (prefault) page tables writable,
634faulting in all pages in the range just as if manually writing to each
635each page;
636however,
637avoid the actual memory access that would have been performed after handling
638the fault.
639.IP
640In contrast to
641.BR MAP_POPULATE ,
642MADV_POPULATE_WRITE does not hide errors,
643can be applied to (parts of) existing mappings and will always populate
644(prefault) page tables writable.
645One example use case is preallocating memory,
646breaking any CoW (Copy on Write).
647.IP
648Depending on the underlying mapping,
649preallocate memory or read the underlying file;
650files with holes will preallocate blocks.
651If populating fails,
652a
653.B SIGBUS
654signal is not generated; instead, an error is returned.
655.IP
656If
657.B MADV_POPULATE_WRITE
658succeeds,
659all page tables have been populated (prefaulted) writable once.
660If
661.B MADV_POPULATE_WRITE
662fails,
663some page tables might have been populated.
664.IP
665.B MADV_POPULATE_WRITE
666cannot be applied to mappings without write permissions
667and special mappings,
668for example,
669mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such as
670.B VM_PFNMAP
671or
672.BR VM_IO ,
673or secret memory regions created using
674.BR memfd_secret(2) .
675.IP
676Note that with
677.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
678the process can be killed at any moment when the system runs out of memory.
47297adb 679.SH RETURN VALUE
95467f1d 680On success,
e511ffb6 681.BR madvise ()
c13182ef
MK
682returns zero.
683On error, it returns \-1 and
fea681da 684.I errno
f6a4078b 685is set to indicate the error.
fea681da
MK
686.SH ERRORS
687.TP
7208ad0a
MK
688.B EACCES
689.I advice
690is
691.BR MADV_REMOVE ,
692but the specified address range is not a shared writable mapping.
693.TP
fea681da
MK
694.B EAGAIN
695A kernel resource was temporarily unavailable.
696.TP
697.B EBADF
698The map exists, but the area maps something that isn't a file.
699.TP
b106cd5b
ZK
700.B EBUSY
701(for
702.BR MADV_COLLAPSE )
703Could not charge hugepage to cgroup: cgroup limit exceeded.
704.TP
9f307c06
DH
705.B EFAULT
706.I advice
707is
708.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
709or
710.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
711and populating (prefaulting) page tables failed because a
712.B SIGBUS
713would have been generated on actual memory access and the reason is not a
714HW poisoned page
715(HW poisoned pages can,
716for example,
717be created using the
718.B MADV_HWPOISON
719flag described elsewhere in this page).
720.TP
fea681da 721.B EINVAL
ac95034e
MK
722.I addr
723is not page-aligned or
c608a033 724.I length
601f3bc6 725is negative.
c608a033 726.\" .I length
fea681da 727.\" is zero,
ac95034e
MK
728.TP
729.B EINVAL
730.I advice
731is not a valid.
732.TP
733.B EINVAL
4335648d 734.I advice
8604677b
CTR
735is
736.B MADV_COLD
737or
738.B MADV_PAGEOUT
739and the specified address range includes locked, Huge TLB pages, or
740.B VM_PFNMAP
741pages.
742.TP
743.B EINVAL
744.I advice
4335648d
MK
745is
746.B MADV_DONTNEED
747or
1ae6b2c7 748.B MADV_REMOVE
36e5bc92
MK
749and the specified address range includes locked, Huge TLB pages, or
750.B VM_PFNMAP
751pages.
ac95034e
MK
752.TP
753.B EINVAL
c13182ef 754.I advice
ac95034e 755is
1ae6b2c7 756.B MADV_MERGEABLE
5baa8f09 757or
ac95034e 758.BR MADV_UNMERGEABLE ,
5baa8f09
MK
759but the kernel was not configured with
760.BR CONFIG_KSM .
fea681da 761.TP
c0c4f6c2
RR
762.B EINVAL
763.I advice
764is
1ae6b2c7 765.B MADV_FREE
c0c4f6c2 766or
1ae6b2c7 767.B MADV_WIPEONFORK
c0c4f6c2
RR
768but the specified address range includes file, Huge TLB,
769.BR MAP_SHARED ,
770or
1ae6b2c7 771.B VM_PFNMAP
c0c4f6c2
RR
772ranges.
773.TP
9f307c06
DH
774.B EINVAL
775.I advice
776is
777.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
778or
779.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
780but the specified address range includes ranges with insufficient permissions
781or special mappings,
782for example,
783mappings marked with kernel-internal flags such a
784.B VM_IO
785or
786.BR VM_PFNMAP ,
787or secret memory regions created using
788.BR memfd_secret(2) .
789.TP
fea681da 790.B EIO
682edefb
MK
791(for
792.BR MADV_WILLNEED )
793Paging in this area would exceed the process's
fea681da
MK
794maximum resident set size.
795.TP
796.B ENOMEM
682edefb
MK
797(for
798.BR MADV_WILLNEED )
799Not enough memory: paging in failed.
fea681da
MK
800.TP
801.B ENOMEM
b106cd5b
ZK
802(for
803.BR MADV_COLLAPSE )
804Not enough memory: could not allocate hugepage.
805.TP
806.B ENOMEM
fea681da
MK
807Addresses in the specified range are not currently
808mapped, or are outside the address space of the process.
9c0b66eb 809.TP
9f307c06
DH
810.B ENOMEM
811.I advice
812is
813.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
814or
815.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
816and populating (prefaulting) page tables failed because there was not enough
817memory.
818.TP
9c0b66eb
MK
819.B EPERM
820.I advice
821is
822.BR MADV_HWPOISON ,
823but the caller does not have the
824.B CAP_SYS_ADMIN
825capability.
9f307c06
DH
826.TP
827.B EHWPOISON
828.I advice
829is
830.B MADV_POPULATE_READ
831or
832.BR MADV_POPULATE_WRITE ,
833and populating (prefaulting) page tables failed because a HW poisoned page
834(HW poisoned pages can,
835for example,
836be created using the
837.B MADV_HWPOISON
838flag described elsewhere in this page)
839was encountered.
6e519900
MK
840.SH VERSIONS
841Since Linux 3.18,
842.\" commit d3ac21cacc24790eb45d735769f35753f5b56ceb
843support for this system call is optional,
844depending on the setting of the
845.B CONFIG_ADVISE_SYSCALLS
846configuration option.
3113c7f3 847.SH STANDARDS
c73c7130
MK
848.BR madvise ()
849is not specified by any standards.
850Versions of this system call, implementing a wide variety of
851.I advice
852values, exist on many other implementations.
853Other implementations typically implement at least the flags listed
854above under
95467f1d 855.IR "Conventional advice flags" ,
c73c7130 856albeit with some variation in semantics.
efeece04 857.PP
a1d5f77c
MK
858POSIX.1-2001 describes
859.BR posix_madvise (3)
682edefb
MK
860with constants
861.BR POSIX_MADV_NORMAL ,
f78ed33a 862.BR POSIX_MADV_RANDOM ,
b7bc9bfd
MK
863.BR POSIX_MADV_SEQUENTIAL ,
864.BR POSIX_MADV_WILLNEED ,
865and
866.BR POSIX_MADV_DONTNEED ,
95467f1d 867and so on, with behavior close to the similarly named flags listed above.
4fb31341 868.SH NOTES
c634028a 869.SS Linux notes
fea681da 870The Linux implementation requires that the address
14f5ae6d 871.I addr
fea681da
MK
872be page-aligned, and allows
873.I length
c13182ef
MK
874to be zero.
875If there are some parts of the specified address range
fea681da 876that are not mapped, the Linux version of
e511ffb6 877.BR madvise ()
c13182ef 878ignores them and applies the call to the rest (but returns
fea681da
MK
879.B ENOMEM
880from the system call, as it should).
bd14f1e3 881.PP
4bbb0652 882.I madvise(0,\ 0,\ advice)
bd14f1e3
ZK
883will return zero iff
884.I advice
885is supported by the kernel and can be relied on to probe for support.
889829be
MK
886.\" .SH HISTORY
887.\" The
888.\" .BR madvise ()
889.\" function first appeared in 4.4BSD.
47297adb 890.SH SEE ALSO
fea681da 891.BR getrlimit (2),
1ae6b2c7 892.BR memfd_secret (2),
fea681da
MK
893.BR mincore (2),
894.BR mmap (2),
895.BR mprotect (2),
896.BR msync (2),
c639b314 897.BR munmap (2),
48cb32cd 898.BR prctl (2),
81ec67d8 899.BR process_madvise (2),
3a4e05a1 900.BR posix_madvise (3),
c639b314 901.BR core (5)