What's it for?
1. Its original role is to guard mmlist.
2. It later got a second role, to prevent get_task_mm from raising
mm_users from the dead, just after it went down to 0.
Firstly consider the second: __exit_mm sets tsk->mm NULL while holding
task_lock before calling mmput; so mmlist_lock only guards against the
exceptional case, of get_task_mm on a kernel workthread which did AIO's
use_mm (which transiently sets its tsk->mm without raising mm_users) on an
mm now exiting.
Well, I don't think get_task_mm should succeed at all on use_mm tasks.
It's mainly used by /proc/pid and ptrace, seems at best confusing for those
to present the kernel thread as having a user mm, which it won't have a
moment later. Define PF_BORROWED_MM, set in use_mm, clear in unuse_mm
(though we could just leave it), get_task_mm give NULL if set.
Secondly consider the first: and what's mmlist for?
1. Its original role was for swap_out to scan: rmap ended that in 2.5.27.
2. In 2.4.10 it got a second role, for try_to_unuse to scan for swapoff.
So, make mmlist a list of mms which maybe have pages on swap: add mm to
mmlist when first swap entry is assigned in try_to_unmap_one (pageout), or
in copy_page_range (fork); and mmput remove it from mmlist as before,
except usually list_empty and there's no need to lock. drain_mmlist added
to swapoff, to empty out the mmlist if no swap is then in use.
mmput leave mm on mmlist until after its exit_mmap, so try_to_unmap_one can
still add mm to mmlist without worrying about the mm_users 0 case; but
try_to_unuse must avoid the mm_users 0 case (when an mm might be removed
from mmlist, and freed, while it's down in unuse_process): use
atomic_inc_return now all architectures support that.
Some of the detailed comments in try_to_unuse have grown out of date:
updated and trimmed some, but leave SWAP_MAP_MAX for another occasion.
projects / linux / commit