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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt')
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diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..98ef55124 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt @@ -0,0 +1,148 @@ +Tmpfs is a file system which keeps all files in virtual memory. + + +Everything in tmpfs is temporary in the sense that no files will be +created on your hard drive. If you unmount a tmpfs instance, +everything stored therein is lost. + +tmpfs puts everything into the kernel internal caches and grows and +shrinks to accommodate the files it contains and is able to swap +unneeded pages out to swap space. It has maximum size limits which can +be adjusted on the fly via 'mount -o remount ...' + +If you compare it to ramfs (which was the template to create tmpfs) +you gain swapping and limit checking. Another similar thing is the RAM +disk (/dev/ram*), which simulates a fixed size hard disk in physical +RAM, where you have to create an ordinary filesystem on top. Ramdisks +cannot swap and you do not have the possibility to resize them. + +Since tmpfs lives completely in the page cache and on swap, all tmpfs +pages currently in memory will show up as cached. It will not show up +as shared or something like that. Further on you can check the actual +RAM+swap use of a tmpfs instance with df(1) and du(1). + + +tmpfs has the following uses: + +1) There is always a kernel internal mount which you will not see at + all. This is used for shared anonymous mappings and SYSV shared + memory. + + This mount does not depend on CONFIG_TMPFS. If CONFIG_TMPFS is not + set, the user visible part of tmpfs is not build. But the internal + mechanisms are always present. + +2) glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for + POSIX shared memory (shm_open, shm_unlink). Adding the following + line to /etc/fstab should take care of this: + + tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 + + Remember to create the directory that you intend to mount tmpfs on + if necessary. + + This mount is _not_ needed for SYSV shared memory. The internal + mount is used for that. (In the 2.3 kernel versions it was + necessary to mount the predecessor of tmpfs (shm fs) to use SYSV + shared memory) + +3) Some people (including me) find it very convenient to mount it + e.g. on /tmp and /var/tmp and have a big swap partition. And now + loop mounts of tmpfs files do work, so mkinitrd shipped by most + distributions should succeed with a tmpfs /tmp. + +4) And probably a lot more I do not know about :-) + + +tmpfs has three mount options for sizing: + +size: The limit of allocated bytes for this tmpfs instance. The + default is half of your physical RAM without swap. If you + oversize your tmpfs instances the machine will deadlock + since the OOM handler will not be able to free that memory. +nr_blocks: The same as size, but in blocks of PAGE_CACHE_SIZE. +nr_inodes: The maximum number of inodes for this instance. The default + is half of the number of your physical RAM pages, or (on a + machine with highmem) the number of lowmem RAM pages, + whichever is the lower. + +These parameters accept a suffix k, m or g for kilo, mega and giga and +can be changed on remount. The size parameter also accepts a suffix % +to limit this tmpfs instance to that percentage of your physical RAM: +the default, when neither size nor nr_blocks is specified, is size=50% + +If nr_blocks=0 (or size=0), blocks will not be limited in that instance; +if nr_inodes=0, inodes will not be limited. It is generally unwise to +mount with such options, since it allows any user with write access to +use up all the memory on the machine; but enhances the scalability of +that instance in a system with many cpus making intensive use of it. + + +tmpfs has a mount option to set the NUMA memory allocation policy for +all files in that instance (if CONFIG_NUMA is enabled) - which can be +adjusted on the fly via 'mount -o remount ...' + +mpol=default use the process allocation policy + (see set_mempolicy(2)) +mpol=prefer:Node prefers to allocate memory from the given Node +mpol=bind:NodeList allocates memory only from nodes in NodeList +mpol=interleave prefers to allocate from each node in turn +mpol=interleave:NodeList allocates from each node of NodeList in turn +mpol=local prefers to allocate memory from the local node + +NodeList format is a comma-separated list of decimal numbers and ranges, +a range being two hyphen-separated decimal numbers, the smallest and +largest node numbers in the range. For example, mpol=bind:0-3,5,7,9-15 + +A memory policy with a valid NodeList will be saved, as specified, for +use at file creation time. When a task allocates a file in the file +system, the mount option memory policy will be applied with a NodeList, +if any, modified by the calling task's cpuset constraints +[See Documentation/cgroups/cpusets.txt] and any optional flags, listed +below. If the resulting NodeLists is the empty set, the effective memory +policy for the file will revert to "default" policy. + +NUMA memory allocation policies have optional flags that can be used in +conjunction with their modes. These optional flags can be specified +when tmpfs is mounted by appending them to the mode before the NodeList. +See Documentation/vm/numa_memory_policy.txt for a list of all available +memory allocation policy mode flags and their effect on memory policy. + + =static is equivalent to MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES + =relative is equivalent to MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES + +For example, mpol=bind=static:NodeList, is the equivalent of an +allocation policy of MPOL_BIND | MPOL_F_STATIC_NODES. + +Note that trying to mount a tmpfs with an mpol option will fail if the +running kernel does not support NUMA; and will fail if its nodelist +specifies a node which is not online. If your system relies on that +tmpfs being mounted, but from time to time runs a kernel built without +NUMA capability (perhaps a safe recovery kernel), or with fewer nodes +online, then it is advisable to omit the mpol option from automatic +mount options. It can be added later, when the tmpfs is already mounted +on MountPoint, by 'mount -o remount,mpol=Policy:NodeList MountPoint'. + + +To specify the initial root directory you can use the following mount +options: + +mode: The permissions as an octal number +uid: The user id +gid: The group id + +These options do not have any effect on remount. You can change these +parameters with chmod(1), chown(1) and chgrp(1) on a mounted filesystem. + + +So 'mount -t tmpfs -o size=10G,nr_inodes=10k,mode=700 tmpfs /mytmpfs' +will give you tmpfs instance on /mytmpfs which can allocate 10GB +RAM/SWAP in 10240 inodes and it is only accessible by root. + + +Author: + Christoph Rohland <cr@sap.com>, 1.12.01 +Updated: + Hugh Dickins, 4 June 2007 +Updated: + KOSAKI Motohiro, 16 Mar 2010 |