Professional Linux Kernel Architecture

Chapter 17

Data Synchronization

RAM memory and hard disk space are mutually interchangeable to a good extent. If a large amount of RAM is free, the kernel uses part of it to buffer block device data. Conversely, disk space is used to swap data out from memory if too little RAM is available. Both have one thing in common—data are always manipulated in RAM before being written back (or flushed) to disk at some random time to make changes persistent. In this context, block storage devices are often referred to as RAM backing store.

Linux provides a variety of caching methods as discussed extensively in Chapter 16. However, what was not discussed in that chapter is how data are written back from cache. Again, the kernel provides several options that are grouped into two categories:

1. Background threads repeatedly check the state of system memory and write data back at periodic intervals.

2. Explicit flushing is performed when there are too many dirty pages in system caches and the kernel needs clean pages.

This chapter discusses these techniques.

17.1 Overview

There is a clear relationship between flushing, swapping, and releasing pages. Not only the state of memory pages but also the size of free memory needs checking regularly. When this is done, unused or seldom used pages are swapped out automatically but not before the data they hold have been synchronized with the backing store to prevent data loss. In the case of dynamically generated pages, the system swap areas act as ...