2002-12-12 16:53:01

by Thomas Schlichter

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Subject: Pinning kernel memory

Hello,

I want to create a big area of unswappable, physical continuous kernel memory
for hardware testing purposes. Currently I allocate the memory using
alloc_pages(GFP_KERNEL, order) and after this I pin it using
SetPageReserved(page) for each page.

Is this acceptable, or may it happen that after the alloc_pages()-call the
kswapd begins to swap out this memory and just any other memory is pinned??
Do I perhaps have to lock the mm->page_table_lock and test each page before I
pin it?? If it is swapped out, how can I assure to get this page back swapped
in?

is SetPageReserved the right way to pin a memory page, or should
SetPageActive(page) or even LockPage(page) be used??

I hope anyone can help me...
Thank you!

Sincerely yours
Thomas Schlichter