Mastering Linux Kernel Development

Summary

In this chapter, we focused on specifics of virtual memory management with respect to process virtual address space and memory maps. We discussed critical data structures of the VM subsystem, memory descriptor structure (struct mm_struct), and VMA descriptor (struct vm_area_struct). We looked at the page cache and its data structures (struct address_space) used in reverse mapping of file buffers into various process address spaces. Finally, we explored the page table layout of Linux, which is widely used in many architectures. Having gained a thorough understanding of filesystems and virtual memory management, in the next chapter, we will extend this discussion into the IPC subsystem and its resources.