Re: [PATCH] remap_file_pages.2: Not actually useful on real files.

On Thu, May 08, 2014 at 11:45:05AM +0200, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:

I've applied the above. I then tweaked it a little. Is the following
okay:

[[
Since Linux 2.6.23,
.\" commit 3ee6dafc677a68e461a7ddafc94a580ebab80735
.BR remap_file_pages ()
has no performance advantage over
.BR mmap (2)
when used on real files:
on real files it creates a separate VMA for each range.
It does, however, continue to provide a performance advantage
for files on memory-based filesystems.
]]

I think "real file" is a very bad term.  What is more real about one
file vs another?  Is NFS less real than XFS, is tmpfs more real than
ramfs?

I'd reword this more like this:

Since Linux 2.6.23, remap_file_pages only creates non-linear mappings
on in-memory file systems like tmpfs, hugetlbfs or ramfs.  File systems
with a backing store provide a less efficient emulation.


I think the whole man page for remap_file_pages is a litt confusing I
have to say, the concept of a VMA is purely kernel internal and doesn't
really have a meaning for applications and thus shouldn't appear in a
man page.


While we're at it:  It seems like we should get rid of the remap_pages
vma operation - it's set by lots of filesystems that can never have
it invoked, and always is set to generic_file_remap_pages anyway.
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