Professional Linux Kernel Architecture

Chapter 18

Page Reclaim and Swapping

The available RAM memory in a computer is never enough to meet user needs or to always satisfy memory-intensive applications. The kernel therefore enables seldom-used parts of memory to be swapped out to block devices, effectively providing more main memory. This mechanism, which is referred to as swapping or paging, is implemented transparently by the kernel for application processes that automatically profit from it. Swapping, however, is not the only mechanism to evict pages from memory. If a seldom-used page is backed by a block device (e.g., memory mappings of files) then the modified pages need not be swapped out, but can be directly synchronized with the block device. The page frame can be reused, and if the data are required again, it can be reconstructed from the source. If a page is backed by a file but cannot be modified in memory (e.g., binary executable data), then it can be discarded if it is currently not required. All three techniques, together with the selection of policy for pages that experience little activity, go by the name of page reclaim. Notice that pages allocated for the core kernel (i.e., not for caches) cannot be reclaimed because this would complicate things more than it would benefit them.

Page reclaim is the cornerstone to one of the kernel's fundamental decisions with respect to caching. The size of caches is never fixed, and they can grow as necessary. The rationale behind this is simple: RAM that is not used ...