
The intent of this file is to give a brief summary of hugetlbpage support in
the Linux kernel.  This support is built on top of multiple page size support
that is provided by most of modern architectures.  For example, IA-32
architecture supports 4K and 4M (2M in PAE mode) page sizes, IA-64
architecture supports multiple page sizes 4K, 8K, 64K, 256K, 1M, 4M, 16M,
256M.  A TLB is a cache of virtual-to-physical translations.  Typically this
is a very scarce resource on processor.  Operating systems try to make best
use of limited number of TLB resources.  This optimization is more critical
now as bigger and bigger physical memories (several GBs) are more readily
available.

Users can use the huge page support in Linux kernel by either using the mmap
system call or standard SYSv shared memory system calls (shmget, shmat).

First the Linux kernel needs to be built with CONFIG_HUGETLB_PAGE (present
under Processor types and feature)  and CONFIG_HUGETLBFS (present under file
system option on config menu) config options.

The kernel built with hugepage support should show the number of configured
hugepages in the system by running the "cat /proc/meminfo" command.  

/proc/meminfo also provides information about the total number of hugetlb
pages configured in the kernel.  It also displays information about the
number of free hugetlb pages at any time.  It also displays information about
the configured hugepage size - this is needed for generating the proper
alignment and size of the arguments to the above system calls.

The output of "cat /proc/meminfo" will have output like:

.....
HugePages_Total: xxx
HugePages_Free:  yyy
Hugepagesize:    zzz KB

/proc/filesystems should also show a filesystem of type "hugetlbfs" configured
in the kernel.

/proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages indicates the current number of configured hugetlb
pages in the kernel.  Super user can dynamically request more (or free some
pre-configured) hugepages. 
The allocation( or deallocation) of hugetlb pages is posible only if there are
enough physically contiguous free pages in system (freeing of hugepages is
possible only if there are enough hugetlb pages free that can be transfered 
back to regular memory pool).

Pages that are used as hugetlb pages are reserved inside the kernel and can
not be used for other purposes. 

Once the kernel with Hugetlb page support is built and running, a user can
use either the mmap system call or shared memory system calls to start using
the huge pages.  It is required that the system administrator preallocate
enough memory for huge page purposes.  

Use the following command to dynamically allocate/deallocate hugepages:

	echo 20 > /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages

This command will try to configure 20 hugepages in the system.  The success
or failure of allocation depends on the amount of physically contiguous
memory that is preset in system at this time.  System administrators may want
to put this command in one of the local rc init file.  This will enable the
kernel to request huge pages early in the boot process (when the possibility
of getting physical contiguous pages is still very high).

If the user applications are going to request hugepages using mmap system
call, then it is required that system administrator mount a file system of
type hugetlbfs:

	mount none /mnt/huge -t hugetlbfs <uid=value> <gid=value> <mode=value>
		 <size=value> <nr_inodes=value>

This command mounts a (pseudo) filesystem of type hugetlbfs on the directory
/mnt/huge.  Any files created on /mnt/huge uses hugepages.  The uid and gid
options sets the owner and group of the root of the file system.  By default
the uid and gid of the current process are taken.  The mode option sets the
mode of root of file system to value & 0777.  This value is given in octal.
By default the value 0755 is picked. The size option sets the maximum value of
memory (huge pages) allowed for that filesystem (/mnt/huge). The size is
rounded down to HPAGE_SIZE.  The option nr_inode sets the maximum number of
inodes that /mnt/huge can use.  If the size or nr_inode options are not
provided on command line then no limits are set.  For size and nr_inodes
options, you can use [G|g]/[M|m]/[K|k] to represent giga/mega/kilo. For 
example, size=2K has the same meaning as size=2048. An example is given at 
the end of this document. 

read and write system calls are not supported on files that reside on hugetlb
file systems.

A regular chown, chgrp and chmod commands (with right permissions) could be
used to change the file attributes on hugetlbfs.

Also, it is important to note that no such mount command is required if the
applications are going to use only shmat/shmget system calls.  It is possible
for same or different applications to use any combination of mmaps and shm*
calls.  Though the mount of filesystem will be required for using mmaps.

/* Example of using hugepage in user application using Sys V shared memory
 * system calls.  In this example, app is requesting memory of size 256MB that
 * is backed by huge pages.  Application uses the flag SHM_HUGETLB in shmget
 * system call to informt the kernel that it is requesting hugepages.  For
 * IA-64 architecture, Linux kernel reserves Region number 4 for hugepages.
 * That means the addresses starting with 0x800000....will need to be
 * specified.
 */
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/shm.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>

extern int errno;
#define SHM_HUGETLB 04000
#define LPAGE_SIZE      (256UL*1024UL*1024UL)
#define         dprintf(x)  printf(x)
#define ADDR (0x8000000000000000UL)
main()
{
        int shmid;
        int     i, j, k;
        volatile        char    *shmaddr;

        if ((shmid =shmget(2, LPAGE_SIZE, SHM_HUGETLB|IPC_CREAT|SHM_R|SHM_W ))
< 0) {
                perror("Failure:");
                exit(1);
        }
        printf("shmid: 0x%x\n", shmid);
        shmaddr = shmat(shmid, (void *)ADDR, SHM_RND) ;
        if (errno != 0) {
                perror("Shared Memory Attach Failure:");
                exit(2);
        }
        printf("shmaddr: %p\n", shmaddr);

        dprintf("Starting the writes:\n");
        for (i=0;i<LPAGE_SIZE;i++) {
                shmaddr[i] = (char) (i);
                if (!(i%(1024*1024))) dprintf(".");
        }
        dprintf("\n");
        dprintf("Starting the Check...");
        for (i=0; i<LPAGE_SIZE;i++)
                if (shmaddr[i] != (char)i)
                        printf("\nIndex %d mismatched.");
        dprintf("Done.\n");
        if (shmdt((const void *)shmaddr) != 0) {
                perror("Detached Failure:");
                exit (3);
        }
}
*******************************************************************
*******************************************************************


/* Example of using hugepage in user application using mmap 
 * system call.  Before running this application, make sure that
 * administrator has mounted the hugetlbfs (on some directory like /mnt) using
 * the command mount -t hugetlbfs nodev /mnt
 * In this example, app is requesting memory of size 256MB that
 * is backed by huge pages.  Application uses the flag SHM_HUGETLB in shmget
 * system call to informt the kernel that it is requesting hugepages.  For
 * IA-64 architecture, Linux kernel reserves Region number 4 for hugepages.
 * That means the addresses starting with 0x800000....will need to be
 * specified.
 */
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <fcntl.h>

#define FILE_NAME "/mnt/hugepagefile"
#define LENGTH (256*1024*1024)
#define PROTECTION (PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE)
#define FLAGS   MAP_SHARED |MAP_FIXED
#define ADDRESS (char *)(0x60000000UL + 0x8000000000000000UL)

extern errno;

check_bytes(char *addr)
{
        printf("First hex is %x\n", *((unsigned int *)addr));
}

write_bytes(char *addr)
{
        int i;
        for (i=0;i<LENGTH;i++)
                *(addr+i)=(char)i;
}
read_bytes(char *addr)
{
        int i;
        check_bytes(addr);
        for (i=0;i<LENGTH;i++)
                if (*(addr+i)!=(char)i) {
                        printf("Mismatch at %d\n", i);
                        break;
                }
}
main()
{
        unsigned long addr = 0;
        int fd ;

        fd = open(FILE_NAME, O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0755);
        if (fd < 0) {
                perror("Open failed");
                exit(errno);
        }
        addr = (unsigned long)mmap(ADDRESS, LENGTH, PROTECTION, FLAGS, fd, 0);
        if (errno != 0)
                perror("mmap failed");
        printf("Returned address is %p\n", addr);
        check_bytes((char*)addr);
        write_bytes((char*)addr);
        read_bytes((char *)addr);
}
