Mastering Linux Kernel Development

Memory nodes

Linux kernel is implemented to support multi-processor machine architectures for a long time now. Kernel implements various resources such as per-CPU data caches, mutual exclusion locks, and atomic operation macros, which are used across various SMP-aware subsystems, such as process scheduler and device management, among others. In particular, the role of memory management subsystem is crucial for kernel to tick on such architectures, since it needs to virtualize memory as viewed by each processor. Multi-processor machine architectures are broadly categorized into two types based on each processor's perception, and access latency to memory on the system.

Uniform Memory Access Architecture (UMA): These are multi-processor architecture ...