Documentation/arch/x86/x86_64/mm.rst
Source file repositories/reference/linux-study-clean/Documentation/arch/x86/x86_64/mm.rst
File Facts
- System
- Linux kernel
- Corpus path
Documentation/arch/x86/x86_64/mm.rst- Extension
.rst- Size
- 13259 bytes
- Lines
- 181
- Domain
- Support Tooling And Documentation
- Bucket
- Documentation
- Inferred role
- Support Tooling And Documentation: documentation
- Status
- atlas-only
Why This File Exists
Repository support layer: documentation, build tooling, samples, user-space helper tools, generated initramfs support, licenses, and validation utilities.
- Repository support layer: documentation, build tooling, samples, user-space helper tools, generated initramfs support, licenses, and validation utilities.
- Allocates kernel memory; connect allocation flags and lifetime to context constraints.
Dependency Surface
- No C-style include directives detected by the generator.
Detected Declarations
- No top-level syscall, struct, function, initcall, or export declaration detected by the generator.
Annotated Snippet
.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
=================
Memory Management
=================
Complete virtual memory map with 4-level page tables
====================================================
.. note::
- Negative addresses such as "-23 TB" are absolute addresses in bytes, counted down
from the top of the 64-bit address space. It's easier to understand the layout
when seen both in absolute addresses and in distance-from-top notation.
For example 0xffffe90000000000 == -23 TB, it's 23 TB lower than the top of the
64-bit address space (ffffffffffffffff).
Note that as we get closer to the top of the address space, the notation changes
from TB to GB and then MB/KB.
- "16M TB" might look weird at first sight, but it's an easier way to visualize size
notation than "16 EB", which few will recognize at first sight as 16 exabytes.
It also shows it nicely how incredibly large 64-bit address space is.
::
========================================================================================================================
Start addr | Offset | End addr | Size | VM area description
========================================================================================================================
| | | |
0000000000000000 | 0 | 00007fffffffefff | ~128 TB | user-space virtual memory, different per mm
00007ffffffff000 | ~128 TB | 00007fffffffffff | 4 kB | ... guard hole
__________________|____________|__________________|_________|___________________________________________________________
| | | |
0000800000000000 | +128 TB | 7fffffffffffffff | ~8 EB | ... huge, almost 63 bits wide hole of non-canonical
| | | | virtual memory addresses up to the -8 EB
| | | | starting offset of kernel mappings.
| | | |
| | | | LAM relaxes canonicallity check allowing to create aliases
| | | | for userspace memory here.
__________________|____________|__________________|_________|___________________________________________________________
|
| Kernel-space virtual memory, shared between all processes:
__________________|____________|__________________|_________|___________________________________________________________
| | | |
8000000000000000 | -8 EB | ffff7fffffffffff | ~8 EB | ... huge, almost 63 bits wide hole of non-canonical
| | | | virtual memory addresses up to the -128 TB
| | | | starting offset of kernel mappings.
| | | |
| | | | LAM_SUP relaxes canonicallity check allowing to create
| | | | aliases for kernel memory here.
____________________________________________________________|___________________________________________________________
| | | |
ffff800000000000 | -128 TB | ffff87ffffffffff | 8 TB | ... guard hole, also reserved for hypervisor
ffff880000000000 | -120 TB | ffff887fffffffff | 0.5 TB | LDT remap for PTI
ffff888000000000 | -119.5 TB | ffffc87fffffffff | 64 TB | direct mapping of all physical memory (page_offset_base)
ffffc88000000000 | -55.5 TB | ffffc8ffffffffff | 0.5 TB | ... unused hole
ffffc90000000000 | -55 TB | ffffe8ffffffffff | 32 TB | vmalloc/ioremap space (vmalloc_base)
ffffe90000000000 | -23 TB | ffffe9ffffffffff | 1 TB | ... unused hole
ffffea0000000000 | -22 TB | ffffeaffffffffff | 1 TB | virtual memory map (vmemmap_base)
ffffeb0000000000 | -21 TB | ffffebffffffffff | 1 TB | ... unused hole
ffffec0000000000 | -20 TB | fffffbffffffffff | 16 TB | KASAN shadow memory
__________________|____________|__________________|_________|____________________________________________________________
|
| Identical layout to the 56-bit one from here on:
____________________________________________________________|____________________________________________________________
| | | |
fffffc0000000000 | -4 TB | fffffdffffffffff | 2 TB | ... unused hole
| | | | vaddr_end for KASLR
Annotation
- Atlas domain: Support Tooling And Documentation / Documentation.
- Implementation status: atlas-only.
Implementation Notes
- This generated page is the file-by-file coverage layer; curated subsystem chapters should link here when they synthesize a multi-file control flow.
- Core OS pages should be promoted from atlas-only to deep-reviewed when they explain data structures, invariants, locking, lifecycle, and C implementation snippets.
- Driver-family pages are intentionally pattern-oriented unless they are part of the selected PCIe/NVMe representative device path.